


We Could be Heroes

by fabricdragon



Series: Smooth Criminal [3]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: 00Q - Freeform, Amorality, BAMF Q, BDSM, Bond is NOT good, Canon Typical Misogyny, Canon-Typical Violence, Computer Hacking, Control Kink, Crimes & Criminals, Dark Mycroft, Dubious Consent, Dubious Ethics, Dubious Morality, Enthusiastic Consent, F/M, Jealousy, Knife Play, M/M, Misogyny, Multi, Mutually Dubious Consent, OOQ - Freeform, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Abuse, Phobias, Relationship(s), Strength Kink, briefly, hes good at what he does, past references to traumatic events
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-10 21:19:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 27,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8939734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabricdragon/pseuds/fabricdragon
Summary: James Bond and Jim Moriarty meet again, only this time, is someone trying to kill them both?...and can Q get out of the way? or is it too late.Follows several  weeks after the end of  Smooth Criminal, part 1.  and begins on December 21st, a few days before Christmas, in London.Updates Sunday and Thursday





	1. Tailored Meetings

It was four days until Christmas and Bond had been leaving his tailor‑he’d been dropping off his annual Christmas gifts‑ when he spotted the argument.  He hadn’t meant to interfere, but… there was only so long you could keep OO7 in London without an assignment before something had to happen, right?  So he’d followed them along until the fellow stepped over the line, and then he’d very politely gone over to tell the fellow that the girl had said “No” and that was the end of it.  It was hardly Bond’s fault that the idiot pulled a knife on a Double-O. Honestly, Bond’s response had been the very model of discretion: he’d broken the man’s arm‑neatly, even; it would heal‑ and given him a concussion. No good deed goes unpunished, however, so here he was, trying to convince the police to go away and if they were very lucky he’d file a report… someday.  Which is why he was looking off, while the girl explained about how her ex-boyfriend was just going through a rough patch, not listening, and his eyes met a VERY familiar set of eyes coming out of HIS tailors.

Jim Moriarty left his tailors to the unexpected sight of James Bond leaning against a police car, looking murderously bored, while some idiot tried to get him to sign something. The smile that crossed his face was entirely genuine, which was unusual. Bond looked up at that exact moment, of course.   It was pure impulse that led him to walk past and drop a card for a local restaurant in Bond’s pocket.

Bond walked into a curry place just off Savile Row and slid into the booth across from Jim.

“Jim.”

“James.”

Matching smiles met across the table, and glanced away just as quickly.

“I haven’t eaten here before, I take it they’re good?” Bond asked as casually as he could manage, but he could feel his libido kicking into high. He’d been so wrapped up in Q’s therapy,  the disaster recovery, the endless paperwork they were  dropping on him ‘as long as you’re here’, and preparing to get back to work, that he hadn’t even had one of his  more casual encounters.

“They’re quite good. Not fancy, but good,” Jim answered, _and damn but James’ voice ran fingers down his spine‑in a good way._

They ordered, and both of them looked almost anywhere but at each other.

“So, James‑“ Jim started at the same time as Bond had started “How have‑“.  Jim laughed and covered his mouth. Bond’s eyes crinkled up and he looked back down at the table.

“Well,” Bond finally said. “This is ridiculously awkward.”

Their food arrived.  The waitress thought they were “an adorable couple”‑it was as clear as if she’d said it to both of them.

Bond groaned, “We’re THAT obvious?” He glanced after the waitress.

Jim moved his foot until he slid his ankle alongside Bond’s.  Their ankle holsters snagged briefly on each other.  Jim smiled, “Yes, I suppose we are.”

“Well, we’re not a ‘couple’ anyway.” James admitted. _Just a few kisses, really._

“More of a ménage a trois, I think,” Jim purred.

Bond had a flash of adrenaline‑which was not helping his arousal‑ and looked warningly at Jim, “Q is recovering, but I don’t think he’s up to seeing you again.”

“So, tell me… have you two gotten any further than that office sofa?” Jim’s voice was velvet. He knew they hadn’t of course, but no point in telling James that.

Bond listened to his instincts and answered, “You know we haven’t.” He shrugged, “Kissed a few times, we’ve gone out to some pubs.  His therapist wants him to encounter music in everyday situations and I go with him… it doesn’t make me inclined to follow up.”

“Yes, it does.”

Bond briefly thought about protesting, and gave it up. “Alright, yes, it does.”

“But you won’t, even though I bet he’s desperately hoping you will.”

“Whose fault is that?” Bond’s annoyance actually managed to cool his libido a bit.

“Oh, don’t be like that,” Jim pouted. “He was smitten with you when I got him.” A very sly smile flashed across his face, “It’s lucky he was that injured; he’s adorable. I might not have been able to resist.”

“Jim, are you trying to make me jealous?”

“Is it working?”

“No. It’s also not necessary.”

Jim laughed. It was an utterly delighted, addictive sound.  The waitress flushed a bit and tried to get her mind back to her work.  _They were SUCH a cute couple, why do the cute ones always have to be gay?_

“So,” James said, leaning forward until his hand brushed Jim’s fingertips. “Are you ever going to let me repay that kiss?” His voice was a threat over sex and Jim started thinking pleasantly about shoving Bond into a dark van.

“You’d have to come out on top, James.” Jim’s voice was going straight to Bond’s crotch.

So of course, Bond’s phone buzzed.  Bond looked down with such a wounded expression that Jim completely lost it, having to stuff a napkin into his mouth to keep from screaming with laughter.

Bond glared at the phone even as he answered it, “Do you have an actual psychic ability to call at the worst possible moment?”

“Whoever she is, Bond, she can wait.” M’s voice was all business on the line. Bond shoved his body into stand by and listened. “One of our higher priorities has made an appearance. I need to have you in briefing immediately.”

“This better be good,” Bond muttered as he hung up.

In an office across London, M raised an eyebrow at the phone. _Bond had definitely been off duty for too long._

“Now?” Jim asked, sounding appalled.

“Now,” Bond sighed. “And I’ll probably be out of the country by tonight, judging from the sound of it.”

“Damn.” Jim’s eyes narrowed. “If you get the SLIGHTEST hint that that phone call was a set up…”

“You think M is cutting us off?” Bond said amused, as he stood up, and put down a healthy tip.

Jim got up and walked with him. “Not her, the other one,” he admitted as he paid the bill.

“Your ex is rather possessive, for someone who probably hasn’t been dating you for… what? Years?”

“You’re such an observant beast, James,” Jim smiled up at him. “Over a decade, at least. You should be flattered: he’s never been jealous before.”

James hailed a cab. “Having someone over M’s head jealous is a political nightmare.”

“Don’t let it stop you. I rather firmly told him to back off.” Jim handed him a card as Bond got into the cab.

Jim wandered off, downcast.  His mood was only slightly improved by knifing some homophobic git that tried to jump him.  _I got blood on my shoes, too. Doesn’t it just figure?_

 


	2. Dream a Little Dream of Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bond gets his mission briefing, and there is a Deja Vu good bye to Q   
> MILD spoilers for Smooth Criminal. (Part 1)

“Are you even paying attention, Bond?!”  M’s voice was a whip crack in the briefing.

Bond obligingly repeated the last few sentences. No, he hadn’t been paying attention, really. “It doesn’t need me, M.  Why not let one of the lesser agents handle it?”

“Because the political situation around the arms deal is delicate, Bond. If you’d been paying attention you would know that.”

“I heard you, M, I just disagree with you.”

“Then you didn’t hear me,” M said flatly. “Go down to the Quartermaster and get your equipment.”

People got out of Bond’s way more than normal as he headed down to Q branch. Q heard the scattering of minions that heralded the arrival of a Double-O in his department and said, “Hello, Bond,” without even looking up.

“Bah.” Bond dropped onto Q’s sofa with a huff.

“Well, yes, I was hoping to  make some NEW memories on that sofa,” Q flushed, then smiled, still looking down  as he put the finishing touches on some  equipment.

Bond grinned over at him, letting his eyes undress Q where he stood. “Back to the beginning again, aren’t we? I leave in too little time to do anything but kiss you goodbye.”

“I expect, Bond, that you will come back sooner, and I won’t have to leave London.”

“True, I should be back Christmas Eve.”

“I was going to be working on Holiday, to let some of the family sorts have the time off.” Q said, “I could do with the company.”

“So what all is that? It looks delicate…” Bond looked dubiously at tiny electronics.  Delicate never boded well for any Double-Os equipment, especially not his.

“Sadly, it is,” Q admitted, showing him all the wonderful electronic toys assigned to him for this mission… and then went over the specifics, including the fact that some of these items, while well beyond conventional technology, were sensitive to liquid, shock, and heat. “Especially this little item: try to keep it on you; I don’t want it falling into anyone else’s hands.”

“Why not save us both some time and feed it into the paper shredder?” Bond groaned.

“Tell you what, bring me back… oh… fifty percent of your equipment, and I’ll make it worth your while.”

“You were going to do that anyway.”

“True, I suppose I’ll have to think of some extra incentive.” Q turned to face him, leaning back against the desk, all tall and awkward and blushing behind his glasses.

“You know it’s adorable that you still blush,” Bond growled, getting up and walking over to Q.

“Stop that,” Q said blushing more. “I can’t help it that I blush. It’s why everyone thinks I’m the stereotypical naïve geek.”

“You look the type.” Bond cocked his head, “Only better looking.”

“You are an utterly incorrigible‑“

Bond cut him off with a kiss. Q was beginning to be familiar with Bond’s kisses:  he had light ones, reassuring ones, passionate ones, and ‘I am having sex by kissing you’ ones‑Q’s favorites.  This was a lot closer to when Bond had questioned him on the sofa: possessive, demanding, utterly in control. Q melted.  He would literally have fallen to his knees if Bond wasn’t holding him up.

Bond growled into Q’s lips, “I plan on making sure the sofa is among the things that I break, Q. You might want to plan ahead and buy a new one.”

Q just made little gasping noises as Bond moved over to his neck and left a mark.

Q pulled himself together after Bond left, one hand resting on the edge of his desk.  He had the eeriest sense of déjà vu. “God DAMMIT, Bond, not again.” He staggered off to the bathroom to pull himself together.

 

Bond was in a foul mood the entire trip.  What happened to the good old days when he got sent someplace tropical?  It seemed like as he got older, and more of his bones hurt, he was more often sent to places like this: cold as fuck in the middle of a freezing rain. He USED to get assigned to go tropical places with bikini-wearing girls‑now?  Bond looked around in annoyance: the girls could be spectacular‑and Russian girls usually were‑ but you could never tell under all the coats.

He checked into the hotel midafternoon, local time‑not that you could tell: the sky was leaden grey and dark even now.  It started sleeting again as he took his room key and headed up.

It was cold in the hotel room. _Typical Russian construction, insufficient heat and windows that the cold just moved through,_ thought Bond. _I’ve stayed in enough of them_.  He couldn’t even call back to Q and have a bit of phone sex: the hotel rooms were bugged, and jamming them would set off alarms.

Bond tossed and turned and paced around the hotel room.  Was it JUST the lack of sex?  He really couldn’t be that stroppy just from that, could he?

_At this rate, I’ll bite someone’s head off before the meeting tomorrow,_ Bond admitted grumpily _.  And any of the available lot are going to be up to their beautiful eyeballs in intelligence and political entanglements‑probably the maids, too. Just get to the contact, get the information, and go home.  Then I can catch up to Q… and maybe Jim._

He remembered that kiss.  He’d never seen the knee to the gut coming, and Jim had him under control in a heartbeat.  He was larger than Jim‑and he didn’t doubt stronger‑ but when your lungs are empty and someone has your air cut off, you tend to be at a disadvantage. Bond grinned; it had been a hell of a kiss. Jim clearly relished being in control. Oh, he played soft, when he felt like it.  It would be like holding down a knife blade, wondering when he was going to turn and cut you.  Bond usually hated being in the down position, but he admitted to a temptation with Jim.  He’d never be able to hold it, voluntarily: Jim would have to keep him down, or the instincts would reassert themselves and he’d turn the tables.  He could picture that ending in bloodshed no matter how it started. Pity.

Q, though… Q definitely liked submission.  He just wanted you to prove you were WORTH it.  Bond grinned and his hand picked up the pace again. Every time Q started in with those ‘smarter than thou’ snarks, Bond wanted to pull him bodily away from his computer and toys, put him down on the ground, and reduce him to begging, panting, and calling his name.  It must be damned hard for Q, and Jim for that matter, being surrounded by all those people who didn’t have half a brain cell.  Q was attracted to dominant, dangerous people‑ people who could easily hurt him‑ but he was reserved enough that most people never knew.  It was a measure of trust that he’d voluntarily let Bond that close. Jim hadn’t been voluntary of course.

He managed to entertain himself with fantasies about Jim and Q, separately and together, for a bit. It helped: his analytical mind kept trying to figure out how Jim and Q would work together. He rather thought they wouldn’t actually, but it was fun to think about.

At three in the morning, local time, he gave up.  If nothing else, getting out into the subzero weather would take some of the attention off his crotch, assuming it didn’t freeze it off. He pulled on his coat, grabbed the bare minimum of his gear, and slipped quietly out of the hotel.

The cold was one of those thin, biting colds that cut right through his coat, sweater, long underwear, and bones.  His shoulder and knee, places that had taken far too many hits over the years, both started swearing at him.  He kept walking anyway.  He walked until he felt that settled calm finally slip over him.  He was a predator in the dark, again: a lone old wolf slipping silently along the buildings.

He turned and headed back to the hotel, no longer a frustrated mass of nerves, but a single, deadly point in the dark.  This entire situation was touchy as hell.  The politics in this part of the world were volatile in the extreme, and an arms deal that was selling weapons to rebels and terrorists was attracting all the worst kinds of attention.  M was right: it needed someone a bit more capable than an ordinary agent.

Bond was one of the longest surviving active duty Double-Os, after all; he knew enough to be canny and not start something in a place like this. The U.K. would have to deny he was here, or actively claim him to be a rogue, if anything went wrong in THIS powder keg.

He was a block away from the hotel when it blew up.  Bond simply turned, a shadow in the dark, and slipped away.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://archiveofourown.org/works/5525924/chapters/13458022 (chapter 6 of Smooth Criminal, for the LAST time Bond had a quick good bye. sadly history is about to repeat itself...   
> Takes place beginning December 21 (the briefing) arrives at hotel the 22nd, and the end happens early in the morning, well before dawn, the 23rd of December.  
> Have a good Yule!


	3. Missing in Action

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> alarms go off when Bond drops out of contact, and Q has a talk with M

The Agent on monitoring detail noted the alarms as signals stopped.  They were a junior agent, deep in the technical department of MI6, and the alarms were simply more orders.  He noted the source of the alert, sent it to the appropriate desks, and the automatic systems started sending out pages and texts.

At just after one AM London time, two days before Christmas, Q got a text that indicated a high level alert, report in immediately. By the time he got outside, the MI6 driver was waiting.

“Do you know what’s wrong?” Q’s first thought had been Bond. It was ridiculous, of course: they had over 20 active operations in play right now, and Bond would only be checked in to his hotel; the meeting didn’t even start until tomorrow evening.

“No, sir. They never tell me, anyway.”

When he saw M arriving, walking hurriedly despite her cane, the whispered “Bond” became a touch louder.

“Please tell me it isn’t?” Q said sounding unruffled and calm as he slid in behind his computer and started bringing up secure data.

“Of course it’s Bond,” M snapped‑ _she was worried_ ‑“He has a TALENT for this sort of nonsense.”

“There’s no news as yet,” one of the overnight agents said calmly. “But satellite imaging is showing a lot of smoke, fire, and emergency response.”

Q cut through the internet to the local Russian bloggers. “Bomb,” he said immediately.  “Social media is reporting either a gas explosion or a bomb centered on the hotel.  It went off at around four AM their time.” He frowned, “Yes, exactly four AM. Which sounds like a detonator on a clock.”

“Our agent?” M asked calmly.

“Reports say there are very few survivors, BUT that is very tentative; they’ve scarcely started digging through the debris,” Q said sounding like a computer‑ cold, emotionless‑ as his fingers danced over news sources and cameras; internally he was frozen. “The majority of Bond’s equipment was in the hotel, and all stopped at the same time.”

He smiled, then, and felt like he could breathe for the first time tonight. “He made it out.”

M’s head snapped over, “How do you know? Have you found him?”

“No, but one of his items ceased functioning five minutes later than the rest, and several blocks away.”

“It could have been blown clear…” someone said slowly.

“No, it couldn’t. That item was the most delicate, and the one I told Bond not to let anyone get their hands on. It would never have survived a blast, or any shock.  He must have had it on him.”

“Then what happened to it?” M asked, to no one in particular.

“It could be he destroyed it, if he thought it was track-able, or it could be he was just Bond at it and it broke,” Q admitted. “But five minutes after the blast he‑it, at least‑ was several blocks away, with other buildings between him and the hotel.”

“Then OO7 is currently presumed to be alive and has gone dark.” M stood up straighter. “Officially, we have no agents in that area.”

Q looked over at her slowly, “What will we do to get him out?”

“Nothing, Quartermaster.” Her eyes flashed a moment’s sympathy at him before they went hard again. “Bond is one of our best; it’s up to him to get himself out.”

Q swallowed his personal nerves and kept up his work.  By the start of the business day in London‑with the combination of computerized algorithms, and knowing who was who on social media‑Q felt he had enough data to present a preliminary report.

“The blame is very clearly being laid on Chechnyan terrorists; however, that is the usual scapegoat in an unclaimed bombing like this.” Q handed around his summary sheet. “The bombing took place after most of the expected guests had arrived, and would be asleep in their rooms.  The only people not already on premises were our contact, and one of the buyers whose plane had a delay.  We have a high likelihood that this was arranged to wipe the slate on this meeting.” Q managed to report this in his usual dry technical fashion. “Some of the bloggers, who have been uncannily accurate in their political analysis, have speculated that this is an official action by the Russian government to remove a source of arms to unfriendly regimes.”

“Why not just arrest them? If it’s a Russian operation, they would have the authority,” asked one of the MI6 analysts.

“Unknown to me at this time,” Q answered calmly, taking refuge in statistics, facts, and numbers. “Politics is not my strong suit.”

“Yes, well.” M nodded to Q, “I will remind you that the Russian hacking program is formidable, and while you are encouraged to read public and semipublic speculation, we cannot, at this time, engage in  any confrontation.”

Q nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak.

He spent Christmas in the office, managing all of the minor work that had to continue over the Holidays, and trying to find a trace of Bond.  He fell asleep on the sofa, still wearing his glasses.

The next day, Boxing Day, there was still no word.

M called him into her office at the end of the day.  She looked up at him from her desk.

“Quartermaster.”

“You wanted to see me, M?”

“Q, our agents put themselves in deadly peril for the good of –“

“Crown and Country, Ma’am, yes.”

“This means that I must send them into dangerous situations.  I sent OO7 on this one because he IS one of our best, and the situation is that unstable.”

“Yes, ma’am, I’m aware of it.”

“Bond has, previously, been declared dead.  Are you aware of that?”

Q swallowed. “It’s been mentioned.”

“The current record for any other agent being in the wind like this is two weeks.  It has barely been four days.”

Q sagged slightly. “Yes, yes I know.”

“I’m sorry that this is coming so closely on the heels of your recovery, Q.” M actually did sound sympathetic. “You handled it very well, when there was anything for you to do, but I know that when there is NOTHING to do, is the time you are going to be most tempted to meddle, and as I said, we CANNOT afford a direct confrontation.”

“Are you asking me to resign, M?”

“Good God, no.” M looked annoyed at him. “You’re very good at what you do, and you came back from things that have broken Double-Os.  I’d be an idiot to let you resign.  No, Q, what I AM doing is ordering you to take leave. Get away from the monitors for a few days at least.  If any news comes in, we will call you immediately.”

The logical, analytical part of Q’s mind acknowledged that this was sound.  He’d already been starting to push into Russian servers, trying to search; doing that from MI6 was guaranteed to start a war.

“Yes, M. Please call me if Bond calls in.”

“When,” M said flatly. “WHEN Bond calls in; or, more likely, saunters in with three bullets in him, a stab wound, and a bottle of the best Vodka under one arm.” She smiled faintly.

Q looked at her thoughtfully and finally smiled, “Do I take it that is not hypothetical?”

M raised an eyebrow. “If that had happened, Q, it would be old history and classified on a need-to-know basis.” She looked back down at her files. “Dismissed.”

“Yes, M. Thank you.”

As he put his hand on the office door she spoke up, “Oh, and Q?”

“Yes?”

“The record for any OTHER agent is two weeks.  OO7’s record is four months.” She continued to work on her files.

Q stared at her. “Four MONTHS?!”

“Yes. We suspect he decided to take his vacation in there somewhere.”

Q smiled faintly, “Was that the time he came home with Vodka?”

M looked up at him and for a split instant he saw the same dancing amusement in her eyes that he saw in Bond’s some days, “No. Rum and an octopus.  Dismissed, Q.”

 


	4. Signs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Alright, damn it, if the universe wants to send me a message can it , you know, text or something?”  
> and Q calls for help

 

Q held out for almost three days: two solid days of not even having real work to distract him.  He tried a bit of hacking from his home computer, but all he managed to get was hints that there was a very quiet manhunt going on, ostensibly for the bomber, but Q was convinced it was for Bond.  Of course, poking around anymore would just cause more problems.

He eventually decided it was worth some unofficial channels, and he headed off to the bookstore to use their network ‑he didn’t want this traced back to him.  He sat in the bookstore coffee shop for several hours, sending messages to people he’d half-forgotten from college and online friends who had contacts in Russia. After a while, he thought he’d best buy a book or two at least, and he started wandering through the bookstore looking for something to read. Of course, he kept tripping over books about spying, Russia, all that.  It was like the universe was trying to send him a message. “Alright, damn it, if the universe wants to send me a message can it , you know, text or something?” he finally muttered under his breath after passing an entire special clearance display on  various travel guides to the former Soviet Union.   The bookstore music was playing some sort of flute… the beat picked up, and Q froze. “He is a hustler, he's no good at all, He is a loser, he's a bum, bum, bum, bum, He lies, he bluffs, he's unreliable…” Q hit the exit from the bookstore at a dead run.

“Jim!” he shouted at the ceiling in his apartment. “I know you have cameras; I hope to hell you have microphones! I need to talk to you!”

Nothing.

Q paced the apartment occasionally calling out for almost an hour.  He finally printed Jim, PLEASE call me and made several copies, placing them  under the cameras he’d found‑ after a moment’s thought, he put them anyplace that looked likely to have sex in. He curled up on the end of his sofa and tried to rest.

He was woken up by his phone ringing.  He practically dove on it, almost accidentally hanging it up. “Hello?!”

“Q, why are there papers all over your apartment asking me to call you?” It was a voice that Q had believed he would never hear again‑had never wanted to hear again‑ and he was never more relieved to be wrong.

“Oh, thank God, I’m not superstitious but after I saw the books and then the music I knew I had to call you. Everything is going insane: Bond’s missing.”

“Q, darling, do you remember your breathing exercises?” Jim’s voice dropped into a sing-song rhythm and pitch.

Q tried to shake it off, “No you don’t understand this is an emergency and I know the books are on clearance because it’s out of season, but‑“

 Jim started singing softly, Q didn’t know the words, but it… sounded…. very… familiar…

Q sat quietly, breathing deeply and steadily, with a soft smile on his lips.

“Very good, Q. I’m here, and everything will be fine,” Jim’s voice spoke soothingly out of the phone. “Tell me what’s wrong, Q.”

“James will come and get me…” Q said dreamily.

“That’s right, James got you.”

Q shook his head slowly, “James is missing.  His last mission went bad.”

“Oh?  He can’t have been missing that long. Tell me what happened…”

Q told Jim about Bond being sent away very abruptly, to go meet a contact about a weapons deal. “It was just like before, he kissed me and left.  The bruise is mostly gone now,” Q said sadly.

“What was the date?”

“The twenty-first.”

“That would be when M called him. He was at his tailors that day…” Jim sounded different… suspicious…

“Is something wrong, Jim?” Q started coming back up. _Something was wrong?_

“Everything will be fine, Q.” Jim went back to his soothing musical voice, “Where was he sent? Tell me what went wrong, but remember, everything will be fine, it’s all fine.”

Q told him: Bond had checked in at the hotel on the twenty-second, and the alert went off when his equipment ceased responding-because of the Bomb… the whole hotel was destroyed at four AM on the twenty-third, in Russia, one AM here.

“But you think he is missing, don’t you?”

“Yes, Jim. One of the most fragile pieces of equipment I gave him was destroyed five minutes after the explosion, six blocks away.  He must have been clear of the blast, but it’s been over five days…”

“James has gone missing before, Q.”

“I know; M told me about the octopus.”

On the other end of the line, Jim started blinking rapidly. _Octopus hallucinations shouldn’t be part of this. Maybe I should bring him back out of it and try to get more information while he’s awake._

“Q, I’m going to bring you back up, now.  When you wake up, you will remember this conversation, but you will also remain calm, and keep breathing steadily and deeply, do you understand?”

“Yes.”

Jim carefully brought him back up. Q felt like he was surfacing out of a pale gold haze.  Everything seemed very calm, and…

“Did- Did I just tell you classified mission data?”

“Of course you did, Q; that was rather the point of conditioning you.”

“I feel like I should have struggled about that…”

“If it will make you feel better, darling, I can pretend you did.”

“Bond,” Q said, deciding to stick to the main point, “is missing. And… and I have a bad feeling about it, even if I’m not superstitious, and every time I turned around in the bookstore I kept seeing travel guides to Russia and the satellite states, and spy thrillers…”

“It’s cold out, Q, no one is going to those places, and people stay home and read  spy novels about  tropical beaches and  explosions,” Jim said very reasonably.

“And… and I asked the universe if it couldn’t just text me a sign if it was trying to get a message to me, and the bookstore played your song...” Q trailed off miserably.

“Ah, I see.” Jim honestly hadn’t thought Q would fall apart at this point, but… with James missing, and the stress, and then hitting a trigger, it made sense. “Well, you were quite right to call me,” Jim said soothingly.

“I was?”

“Of course, Q. You can ALWAYS talk to me.  Didn’t I promise I would always be there for you?”

“I… I don’t remember.  I think you did?”

“I need you to answer a question, if you know the answer.”

“I already gave you the classified stuff,” Q sighed.

“Do you know why they sent James?”

“Because the political situation is so delicate, M said, and they would have to…” Q closed his eyes and took a deep breath, “disavow any agents in the area, if things went wrong.  It is politically touchy, you must know that.”

“Yes.  Politics.” Jim sounded angry.

“Jim?”

“I’m not angry at you, Q darling; you’re my fluffy-haired, myopic jewel.”

Q heard Jim say that and imagined a hand stroking his hair; he suddenly felt perfectly content _. Jim would know what to do._

“Well, you didn’t sit there and do nothing, Q. What have you found out?”

“I can’t prove it, but the pattern of the ‘terrorist hunt’ looks more like they’re looking for Bond.  Oh, and the contact that he was supposed to meet? Was one of two people not in the hotel; the other one had travel problems. I sent some messages to some of my college contacts, but I haven’t heard back yet.”

“So you think it was a trap?”

“Yes.  I think the Russians tried to take down the whole meeting, and now they’re after Bond.”

“Hmmm… isn’t it curious that darling James was suddenly called to do that.”

“Is it? I always had the impression M adored Bond, even if she hardly shows anything.”

“Oh, not M, the other one: Mycroft.”

Q blinked into the phone. “Why would Mycroft be involved?”

“Because it’s politics, and perhaps I can explain later. Can you do me a favor, Q?”

Q swallowed. He was awake now and saying yes to that… He took a deep breath, “If it will help Bond.”

“I need you to hack into MI6 for me.” Q started to say no, or why, but Jim continued, “I just want to know if James was a last minute change in personnel.”

“What?”

“Just find out why James was called in at the last minute, please Q?”

Q pulled his laptop over.  This was a civilian laptop without the secure encryption code required to access MI6 servers. It was theoretically impossible to bypass the security to access mission files from outside MI6; Q did it in eight minutes.

“According to this, it was supposed to be a lower ranked agent. Mission parameters were upgraded to Double-O status by M and Bond was hand-selected by her‑probably after a review of the political situation.  He was also the only Double-O available that speaks fluent Russian.”

Jim stared at the cameras and looked at the timer. _Eight minutes.  Admittedly, it was Q’s security, but…_ Jim poured a bowl of cream for the Faeries and put it down by the back door while he talked on the phone.

“Q, I am afraid it’s very likely that Mycroft manipulated M into sending James, in order to get him killed.  Luckily, James is very hard to kill.”

“Why would‑“

“That’s not the important point, Q, not right now. Pack an overnight bag and walk to the corner in one hour.  One of my people will pick you up.”

“We’re going to rescue Bond?”

Jim giggled, “Why not? Turnabout is fair play, isn’t it?”

One hour later, Q got into a car and was driven away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as a reminder, Jim's signature song is "Criminal" (The Britney Spears one, not the awesome but completely different Fiona Apple one).  
> The psych boys have stopped that from putting him UNDER, but they obviously have only found some of the hooks.


	5. Into the Dungeon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poor, poor Q

Q had expected a long drive‑ out of London, certainly; instead, they just went to a different neighborhood. The driver told him which door, and let him out.

Q stood on the doorstep, wondering if it was too late to turn around and run, when a woman opened the door. She was wearing a corset dress, high heeled boots, had her hair pulled severely back, and was carrying a riding crop. Q felt faint and he was certain his blush was actually glowing. _Oh, Oh not that, anything but that._

“Come in,” she said, looking Q over as if he was a piece of fresh meat.

Q didn’t realize he’d done just that until the door closed behind him. The dominatrix dropped a lead over his head in a practiced fashion and pulled the loop closed around his throat. Q reflexively tilted his head so it wouldn’t catch on his glasses or in his hair.

“You’ve done this before,” she smirked. “And here he told me not to shock you too much.” _So much for that…_

Q just closed his eyes and tried not to groan. “Yes, Ma’am. PLEASE just take me to Jim?”

She led him through the house. _On a leash, around my throat._ Q felt lightheaded. _Thank God she isn’t really my type._ The public areas looked ordinary enough, but Q noted with increasing dismay, and interest, that there were a lot of restraint points for an “ordinary” house.  It stopped being ordinary once they got into private areas.

Q started breathing heavily when they walked into a movie-set perfect Victorian “gentlemen’s room”. It looked like it was either the man’s library and smoking room in a rich private house, or a private room in a Victorian club. Someone had spent a fortune on this, down to the correct titles of the leather-bound books.  It smelled faintly of pipe smoke and alcohol. _I could never have afforded this place back in Uni._

“Sir?” the dominatrix spoke into the room. “You didn’t tell me he knew his way around.”

One of the tall chairs turned lazily toward the door. Q stared at Jim: he’d never seen Jim except impeccably turned out, but right now he was in a silk pajama set.  He was lounging in a leather chair as if it was a throne.  _And I’m on a leash…_

Jim, meanwhile, stared at Q.  The man looked like he was a college kid under the best of conditions, and right now he looked even younger.  Sasha had him casually on a lead, snugged up against his throat, with no tension on it. Q was standing… submissively… at heel. Jim suddenly realized he had a VERY limited profile on the man. He went over his knowledge of Q rapidly as he deliberately let his eyes linger over every inch of him, in a way that had to provoke some reaction.

_All his favorite fantasies about James involved James being absolutely controlling, holding people down, dominating them.  When James had started trying to break him loose from the conditioning he’d been gentle‑and Q had responded to that‑but he hadn’t started coming apart until James started bruising him, biting him, holding him down… leaving a mark… Q was a submissive, of course, but that was just his FANTASY life, right?_

_I hadn’t been able to find anything on his background…_

Q watched Jim look pointedly at the leash he was on, then flushed as he dropped his eyes immediately. _WHY didn’t the floor have one of those movie death traps that dropped you into a shark tank?_   Q would have pulled the lever himself to get away from Jim’s shocked expression.  He glanced back up.  Jim’s mouth had curved into a cruelly possessive smile and his eyes were traveling over Q like he was undressing him, ending where he began: on the leash _.  Jim was a very dangerous man,_ Q tried to tell himself _. It didn’t seem to help._

The dominatrix tugged on the leash; Q winced and got taken over to Jim. She handed the lead over. “Want me to fetch anything?” she asked, voice full of innuendo.

“Shoo.” Jim just waved her off, while Q prayed to be struck by lightning, or swallowed up in an earthquake, or something. He heard the door click shut as she left.

“Put the bag down, Q.”

“Can we just pretend this is one of those ‘showed up to school naked’ nightmares and forget about this?” Q asked sort of hopelessly as he put the bag down.

“Oh not on your LIFE, Q.  Mostly I’m kicking myself for having MISSED it.” Jim was still casually holding the lead in his hand, looking up at Q. “I knew Bond was a dominant, and had a touch of the sadist to him‑it’s why we get along so very , very, well.”

Jim pulled Q down with the leash. Q thought about trying to grab the line with his hands, thought better of it, and dropped down to his knees at Jim’s feet.

Jim started petting Q’s hair, and all the tension ran out of him.  _That was just conditioning_ , Q thought. Jim pulled Q’s hands back and Q reflexively put one wrist over the other behind his back, and let Jim tie the leash around his wrists, binding his arms behind him.  _I guess this is kind of conditioning too_ , Q sighed as he felt the old rituals putting him under.

“No wonder you conditioned so easily, Q.” Jim smirked as he pulled his head back. “How much practice do you HAVE?”

Q looked up at Jim.  _Jim who was dangerous, and smart, and funny and utterly controlling…_ “Fuck.”

“Oh, I will, I think, but not until you answer my questions.” Jim held him tipped back casually, by pulling on the leash. 

“I used to hurt myself, in school.” Q swallowed hard, trying to answer without giving too much away, “I didn’t find out about… about  this… until I went to Uni.  A girl saw the bruises on me at a mixer and talked to me.  She got me in touch with the local BDSM group.” Q couldn’t think very well, between being restrained, and Jim petting his hair.  Two different types of domination were mixing up in his brain…

Q was trying to pull himself up, really, he was… but _Jim was right, Jim was always right, he could TRUST Jim.  And Jim was also sexy, dangerous, and had a leash around his throat_.  Q scrabbled uselessly against the pull for a moment and gave up.  He went under.

Jim had been watching his eyes.  Q went under faster than he’d ever seen without drugs, but he was also clearly in a state of high arousal.  The combination of dominance games and Jim’s own conditioning must be playing havoc with his resistance. _Damn.  At this point Q might as well have been gift wrapped._

“Not just cream for the faeries; I think I’ll endow the BDSM club near your university. I wonder if they’d like their own dungeon?” Jim mused.  He experimentally switched from petting Q’s hair to pulling on it.  Q moaned.

“You know, this is almost too easy,” Jim sighed.  He got up and tugged Q to his feet. He went over to the desk, and put Q into a kneel next to his chair.  He sat down, petting Q’s hair with his off hand, while he got his phone out of the drawer.  It did clash with the room, but you couldn’t expect him to do without a few conveniences. “Sasha? Bring me a light collar, a riding crop, and my bag… no, the one near the window.

“All right, Q, we’re going to go rescue James, but we have a few hours before we can leave.  Now I actually LIKE you, you know, and that’s rare.  Besides, you’re my treasure.”

“Thank you, Jim,” Q said, very sincerely. He felt centered again.

“I want you to be fully awake, Q, but you will remain calm, and centered, do you understand?” Q nodded. Jim brought him up, at least out of his conditioning.

“So.” Jim let go of the lead, and pulled his chin up to look at him. “Color safe words, do you know those?”

“Green means go, yellow means slow or take a break, red means stop now,” Q nodded. _I never even imagined this with Jim; he’s so gentle…_

“Do you have a safeword you use?”

Q flushed, “No, I usually used the club’s word, or picked one. Refrigerator or aardvark was pretty common.”

“Any limits?”

_What limits would he have to worry about with JIM?_ Q shook his head, “Don’t leave marks where they show, and nothing I have to explain to the doctors?” He thought for a minute. “I’m not into needles, and lately they feel more like…” he glanced up at Jim and sighed, “Hospitals. You know.”

“Knives?” Jim asked politely, as if this was a perfectly normal thing to be discussing.

“No idea, never tried it.” _Knives? Jim?_

“Breath play?” Jim smiled then, “James rather liked it.”

“What?!”

Sasha, the dominatrix from the door, came in with a bag and a few other things. “Are we keeping him, Sir?” She looked Q over amusedly. “He’d fit right in. We could have him kneeling by the door as people came in.”

Q flushed and looked down at the carpet.

Jim grinned at her, “I’m keeping him‑personally.  I planned that ages ago; I just didn’t know I got extras with him.  Apparently the devil does reward his own, eh?”

Sasha looked him over. “I guess he does, Sir. I guess he does.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember, Q HONESTLY never considered Jim as being someone who would use a flog, or a knife, or anything. Jim is ... soft, and gentle, and uses drugs and music.  
> right?


	6. Scars, both old and new

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> just what it says on the tin.  
> kinks, knifeplay, scarring, more flogging (not graphic really) and phobias

Jim untied the leash and told Q to strip. “It’s not like I haven’t SEEN it, although admittedly I was paying more attention to how you were healing.” Jim looked thoughtfully at Q as he disrobed. “Turn.”

Q was feeling mortified, as he stood in the middle of the room and turned slowly. _And damn it I’m getting turned on by THAT too. Fucking damned control fetish._ He tried to keep his eyes on the bookshelves. Now that he thought about it, Jim was very solidly in control, but…

“Look at me, Q.”

_Shit._ He looked at Jim as he came out from behind the desk and picked up a fairly ordinary looking collar… and the riding crop.  Q went from ‘interested” to “more please” almost instantly. _Jim had a riding crop? JIM?!_

Jim smirked at the reaction. _Definitely familiar with a crop, and likes it._ Jim fought the urge to push too far- Q was valuable, after all.

Jim had him put his hands on the desk and spread his legs. _He didn’t sound like this was new to him, maybe? Maybe he wasn’t just soft things?_

“Did the doctors put any restrictions on you?” Jim asked him lightly.

“Not anymore, Jim. Uh… don’t hit the scars? I don’t think that would be good.”

“No, it wouldn’t.” Jim struck him across the ass twice, hard enough to really hurt. Q howled and then tried to be quiet, but kept his hands on the desk. _Oh my God, I’m doomed._

“Too hard?” Jim asked pleasantly. _But he hadn’t safeworded…_

“I don’t know, maybe? It was sudden,” Q panted.

“Go ahead and scream if you like: I’ve interrogated people in this room, no one can hear you.” He paused. “Well, no one but my people, and they’re used to me making people scream, one way or another.”

Fear added a whole new layer to the chemicals making a mess of Q’s thinking.

Jim hit him, just as hard as before, five more times. “So, how are we doing, Q?” _Still no safeword_.  Jim wanted to hold him down and fuck him, but James hadn’t yet…

Q blinked fuzzily and tried to shake his hair out of his eyes. He distantly felt Jim putting a collar on him. Jim had him stand up and come over to a sort of oversized chaise lounge. He was pushed down onto it, and Jim started rather matter of factly attaching restraints to him. In short order, his arms were restrained over his head and his ankles tied down. The collar felt very snug around his throat.

“Jim?”

“Yes, Q?”

“Can I breathe? The collar feels tight.” Q felt spacy, like nothing was connected.

Jim laughed and held Q’s eyelid open, looking at his pupil dilation. “Oh my, you are out of it. YES, Q you can breathe just fine. It’s all right, I’m here, and you trust me, right?”

“Yes, Jim.” That calm, centered feeling came back over him. “John told me you did horrible things. I was just scared.”

“Oh?” Jim giggled, “I did, Q, and I do, but you never have to worry.”  Jim reached out and traced a scar on Q’s chest… Q moaned and tried to arch into it. “That is just unfair. I want to just cover you in bruises and watch you squirm.”

_Q was completely out of it, and apparently very interested in that idea,_ Jim noted.  Jim pulled Q’s head back by his hair, and started kissing the scar.

“Bond left this,” Jim spoke right into Q’s chest, “when he tried to take you away from me.” He tongued at the scar James had left.

“You… you said…” Q was breathing hard.

“That James would come and get you, and he did. That you would be with James, and you were, mostly… I also said we would be together again.  I told you that I would NEVER let you go, Q; sometimes you just need to play out the line a bit.”

_Fine, I won’t fuck him, James gets to be first, but there are LIMITS to my self-control…_    Jim got out a knife from his bag.  He carefully cleaned it off. He struck Q across the chest with the riding crop three times-not as hard as he had on his ass, but hard enough. Q arched into it and started begging.

_This is what Sherlock could have been, with a bit of time,_   Jim mused _. If Mycroft was behind this, he might have to see to it.  Or maybe John?_   Jim amused himself with the idea of bending both of them around while Mycroft searched, wondering what he’d find.

He cleaned off Q’s chest, carefully. “Last chance, my brilliant treasure.  Safeword now, or live with it forever,” Jim practically sang at him.

Q had no idea what he might be safe-wording from, and didn’t care. “I’m yours, Jim.  I didn’t know it could be this, too,” Q looked up at him hazily. “Just… just don’t make me give up Bond, please?”

Jim smiled down at him. _WHAT a wonderful creature he was_. “I told you, Q. I want you both.  Won’t that be marvelous? James holding you down, growling in your ear, USING you… while I do whatever I want?”

Q could picture it‑Q was picturing it.

Jim brought the riding crop down on Q’s crotch as Q had that image firmly in mind. Q came, and came apart.  He screamed beautifully as Jim carved his initials into his chest, very small, just opposite where bond had left a scar of his teeth. He never even tried to safeword.

Jim cleaned him up, and bandaged the cuts carefully.  He tied Q up very comfortably, wrapped him up in a blanket, and pulled him into his lap.  He was petting and tugging at Q’s hair while he made all the arrangements to go and acquire Bond.  Q fell asleep fairly quickly.

Q slept trustingly in his lap while Jim booked the flight.

*

 

“What do you MEAN you won’t get on a plane?” Jim stared at Q.

“I’m terrified of flying.” Q huddled miserably in the corner of the couch. Jim hadn’t told him anything involved airplanes until he was dressed and asked where they were going, and then the bastard had said “Heathrow.”

“You…” Jim was just staring at him. “You let me carve my initials in your chest and didn’t safeword, but you won’t get on an airplane- even First Class?”

“I KNOW it’s irrational. Ok?” Q looked utterly miserable.

Jim muttered, “Well, faerie gifts can’t be without a price, I suppose.”

“Can’t I just work from here?”

“No.” Jim looked thoughtful, “Q, you are simply going to HAVE to be brave. Now I can put you under a bit, it will help, but if I put you under too much, people will fret.”

“Airplanes…” Q shuddered.

“It’s for James, darling.  You are the Quartermaster of MI6 and that agent destroyed all of your gear‑ you HAVE to go get him and chew him out, don’t you?”

Q sniffled a bit and tried to pull himself up straighter.

“And then he’ll owe you make-up sex,” Jim nodded firmly.

That helped too.

He made it onto the plane, somehow. Jim gave him the rest of the tranquilizers once they were onboard.  He was blessedly asleep until they landed in Germany.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As someone with a phobia i can tell you that its tough for other people to understand sometimes. I know people who can do BSDM play that would send me SCREAMING who break into a cold sweat at the sight of a dog, for instance. (not my phobia, dogs are wonderful, all dogs. my own dog is 130 pounds and taller than me on her hind legs.)


	7. Mycroft

They bought new phones, winter clothes, and computers in Germany.  Jim promised they would take a train the rest of the way. Apparently the near nervous breakdown in the German airport had been difficult.

“I had already arranged a private plane from here, and I have to get my things from it, then we’ll go to the train, alright?

Q followed him shaking like a leaf.  There was a TEENSY little plane sitting in the private plane section. Q started having panic attacks even imagining it.

“Q? Q dear? Deep breath…” Q took a deep shaky breath, and Jim sprayed him in the face. Q sank to the ground unconscious before he had a chance to breathe out.

“Right,” Jim nodded. “Load him up.”

_It couldn’t be without some price,_ Jim supposed. _I mean, really, he owned bait for James, a brilliant computer genius worth having in his own right who was, despite it all, still working with a top level security clearance in MI6. PLUS he was very pretty, gay, attracted to Jim too, and he soaked up conditioning like a sponge…  and then it turned out THAT was probably because he was a hard core submissive in his personal life.  I mean really, if the fates, or faeries, or the devil, wanted to drop gems like that on him? Who was he to complain about a bit of phobia?  A small price to pay really._ Jim petted Q’s unconscious body as they flew into Russia. _I really MUST try to get a better background check on this boy, though._

Jim told his various people to start discretely digging into Q’s background, very discretely; he didn’t want anyone to notice.

*

Mycroft had his hands full, and these idiots kept adding things to it.  _Goldfish, the entire lot of them. Remarkably STUPID goldfish._

The Korean situation was being difficult, the situation in Syria was a complete mess, Russia was being extremely difficult, and MI6 had managed to lose some Double-O in one of the satellite states chasing after weapons suppliers, which made it worse. Three South American drug cartels were acting up, and one they had planned on acting up wasn’t, and the American political situation was off the rails. 

That was in addition to his personal life going to hell:  Sherlock refused to speak with him since Moriarty had him.  Mycroft was fairly certain he’d been raped, but… he hadn’t. Not technically, but as good as, maybe even worse. 

Somehow in all the time Jim had been going after him before, he must have gotten a good look at his weaknesses.  God alone knows why he hadn’t used them before, but he surely had this time.  Mycroft called up in his mind the letter Jim had left: he could still see the faint lip imprint in the corner. Sherlock would be left alone as long as Mycroft kept his end of the bargain, making it look like Jim was  actually part of their counter-espionage team, and left James Bond strictly alone.

The cover story worked beautifully.  Most of Jim’s plans worked beautifully, when he didn’t let his insanity get the better of him.  It even explained why Mycroft, the Iceman himself, had let Jim Moriarty go, instead of burying him in the deepest cell they had.  It explained it all.

_He’d found someone else._   The thought would stab at his heart, randomly, during the work day, or at night when he tried to sleep.

He’d seen that Bond was interested in Jim when he’d mentioned the kiss‑that was trouble, of course: Jim could manipulate people into loving him.  He’d been surprised at his managing to get his hooks into Bond, given that Bond also cared deeply about that ridiculously dangerous boffin. He’d been smug about it when he’d seen the fury in Bond at how damaged Q was; Jim would try to pull that leash and Bond could choke him with it.

_I’d been looking forward to seeing him try._

And then he’d seen the two of them together… and he’d known. _MY Jim, that insufferable, dangerous, insane psychopath, was looking at Bond the way he’d used to look at me_. He’d almost lost it then.  He could almost feel the blade sliding right through Bonds femoral artery; it would have just been a moment… too quick for anyone who’d managed to replace him with Jim, but at least he’d be dead.  He’d pulled himself together then, leashed his dark side and made it go back to its cage…

Looking back on it, yes, he’d been making plans to kill Bond.  It would be easy enough: he was a Double‑O‑ they died.  Bond was one of the best, but he’d also lasted the longest in the field, and he took chances, it would be an easy thing to get rid of him. Mycroft’s only regret was that he wouldn’t be able to do it himself. 

_I had somehow thought Jim wouldn’t see it, as if he couldn’t see right through me, as if we hadn’t killed everyone else…_

Jim took Sherlock apart.  Never left a mark on him‑ in fact he’d never looked better‑ but he was broken in ways Mycroft could only stare at, like a single touch would be all it would take and his brother would be gone. Sherlock managed to put himself back together, somehow, but the warning had been very clear: touch James and next time I won’t stop short.

He’d told, or let slip, to Sherlock that they’d been lovers, once‑as if the letter hadn’t been clear enough.

A little piece of Mycroft had looked at what he’d done to MI6’s quartermaster‑in a few weeks, while he recovered from surgery and a heavy hand would have killed him‑ and envied Jim’s craftsmanship.  An even tinier piece, that Mycroft would deny to his last breath, had looked at what he’d done to Sherlock‑ in two days, without leaving a mark‑ to one of the most brilliant minds in England, and he’d felt a trace of that old wishful thinking,

Back when he’d let himself imagine that it could be the two of them, ruling the world from the shadows‑beautiful, changeable Jim laughing at his side.

Back when he’d let himself think about paying all those stupid people back for having to put up with them.

Back before he’d leashed himself with rules, and loyalty, and “for Crown and Country”…

Back before he’d pulled himself back from the darkness that Jim lived in, with his madness and his brilliance.

Mycroft kept going about his business; it kept his mind occupied, and he usually managed not to think about any of it. In fact, he thought of it less and less as time went on.  In another year he expected he wouldn’t think about any of it at all: it would all be deleted, or put away deep in his mind, to be forgotten. Bond would likely die, or… or Jim would call his chit and run off with him.  Mycroft had tried to build a cold fantasy around that, one where Jim killed him, eventually, and forgot him, but it hadn’t soothed the wound in Mycroft’s pride. Better to just not think about them, until they were nothing but old dusty files, with no significance.

First thing in the morning, December thirtieth, as Mycroft was getting ready to go over his briefings, D.I. Lestrade came in with some files.  _He was a pretty goldfish, and he tried._

“Sir?” He closed the door and put the file down. “Mycroft? I spotted this in the international security sweep, and I thought you should see it.  Is this one of your actions? You normally let us know…”

“What, Greg? I’m sorry, there’s so much going on. What’s this about?”

“The usual security at Heathrow, Sir.  Someone was acting suspiciously yesterday morning so their picture got snapped and run through the face recognition programs, and of course it flagged.”

Mycroft opened the file, and only just avoided gasping.  There was the Quartermaster of MI6 –his eyes flicked across the file data‑ traveling under a flimsy false identify, heading out of the country. “What the HELL?”

“That’s what I said, Sir.”

Mycroft was about to ring M and rake her over the coals when his eye fell on the face a few people behind Q: he was disguised, and he blended in anyway, and he looked like he’d been sucking on a lemon, but it was Jim.

“I’ll handle it, Greg.  Make it disappear, please.”

“Yes, Sir.” Greg left.

Alone in his office, Mycroft stared at the file. _So, Jim had picked up Q and they were flying to Germany? Why? And why such a LOUSY job at the fake ID? It must have been a rush job…_

Mycroft called M and asked for a current report on the situations at MI6.  The Double‑O agent missing in the field was OO7: James Bond.  Mycroft continued through the rest of the reports, as though it was all the same to him.

James Bond had escaped being blown up at the hotel, and was being hunted.

Q had been stressed, and put on leave rather than risk cyber-hostilities from his poking around.

Mycroft put inferences together faster than humanly possible: he’d gone to Jim, or Jim had come to him, offering to get Bond back.  They were on route to retrieve him, which would be simple enough with Jim’s criminal contacts.  Jim would have OO7 out of there without even a whisper, Mycroft was certain.

It was the best possible solution for Britain. The political situation was touchy, and the best thing was for Bond to be out of there without any fuss: no proof they were there, no politics, just gone; absolutely the best possible solution for Crown and Country.

Except it would mean Jim would have rescued him, and that would go a long way toward cementing a relationship between them.  Mycroft closed his hand on his pen, he didn’t even notice when it cracked. Ink dripped out between his fingers and onto the desk.

He startled and  wiped  up the ink as best he could, dropping the pen‑and his no longer white handkerchief‑ into the waste basket.

He picked up the phone and called a contact in Russia:  terrible how a couple of our agents went rogue. Mycroft sent them all the information they would need to capture these dangerous and destabilizing persons before they could slip past. In exchange for which, of course, I expect that they will be shot immediately, and not questioned? Good, we understand each other, mutual respect and cooperation are so important.

Mycroft put the memory of Jim laughing up at him and the taste of his blood on Mycroft’s lips in a file marked deceased, and closed that drawer in his mind.


	8. Bond

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mild TW  
> Bond being Bond, basically

Bond had slipped away like a shadow in the dark after the explosion.  He’d been just a handful more blocks away when he pulled a small, delicate piece of electronics out of his pocket.  _I’m sorry, Q, but I would have destroyed it eventually_ … He crushed it under his heel and kept walking.

He got himself to the bigger city by the next day. He’d been cursing the rain and the cold at first, but he had to admit no one was going to use satellites to track anyone in this. He slipped along, blending in, moving steadily.  He didn’t stop to sleep until he was in the next city and found a sheltered corner.  He only napped for a few hours until the city was well awake.

 _God bless the capitalist revolution_ , thought Bond, as he could just go and BUY local clothing.  He didn’t have much money on him, but long experience had taught him to always carry enough for a change of clothes and a night at a hotel, at least.  He went to the spa and sat in the steam until the cold left his old bones a bit.  He thought about shaving, but, if they had an idea who they were looking for, a beard might do him good.

He’d just lie low until he was certain no one was looking for him and then go home.

It was then he realized one very serious annoyance: Christmas. It was already Christmas Eve day, and while it wasn’t the full on extravaganza you got in America, people were making plans. Hanging about being unattached wasn’t going to be subtle.

_Well, then, time to pick up a bit of cover._

He found a bar, and sat there cracking jokes, and blending into the local crowd.  Not for the first time he missed Alec‑ _damn bastard_. He was actually honest to god having to wipe away a tear when he spotted a prime target.  He let her see him wipe the tear away and go back to laughing at people’s horrid jokes.

She was plumper than most Russians went for these days, and the satellite states followed fashion.  She’d put her make up on with a careful hand, but she’d been crying, and she wasn’t used to being in a bar alone.  Bond watched her carefully‑ _yes, some fool had dumped her_. She was one of the loyal ones‑ Bond could tell‑the kind that never strayed, and were dependable and sweet, and some idiot always threw them away for a flashy long legged thing. They could usually cook, too.

When she went to get a drink he bought it for her. “How can a beauty like you be all alone on Christmas Eve? Your fellow must be a fool.”

Her eyes lit up with hope in a way that was absolutely painful to watch. She ducked her head, “I’m not a beauty, and you’re teasing me.”

Bond lifted her chin and looked her in the eyes. “You’re a warm fire in the hearth on a cold day.”

She blushed all sorts of colors and ducked her head. For an unsettled moment, Bond thought of Q, and how he blushed, and with the comparison he could see how different it was. She was genuinely shy; Q was only shy with emotional attachment.  She was an open book; Q was guarded.  They were both submissive as hell, though, in completely different ways.  She’d make someone a fabulous wife: docile, trusting, not a sharp edge on her. Q? Q would push back, just to make sure you meant it‑ keep you on your toes.

Luckily Bond worked well on auto-pilot. He dragged himself back to the current mission: survive, hide, and return home.

He  raised a toast to absent friends, letting it slip that his brother in arms, his dearest friend, had passed on several years ago, and this was the anniversary of his death‑ it wasn’t, that had been summer, but Alec would never have minded him lying to pick up a girl. By this point, he was dressed like a sailor dressed when he was away from the ship and home on leave; with his beard growing in, he looked the part, too.

Her name was Galina and an hour later he was being shown into her flat, and treated to a late night dinner. She was a better cook than he expected.  Bond liberally praised her cooking and let her coax him into staying the night _.  Her ex-boyfriend was an idiot_. Bond spent Christmas warm, dry, well fed, and half naked with a pretty girl in his arms.  _Not bad, not bad at all._

He spent the next day fleecing people out of their Christmas money at cards and darts. He was careful, winning just a bit every time, never walking away with too much, but by that evening he had enough to make some purchases.  He found a drunken idiot who thought he was a darts champion that evening, and parted the fool from his money with ease.  He came back to Galina’s flat with chocolates: she acted like he gave her diamonds. _The poor girl was attention starved!_   If Bond ever met her idiot ex he wasn’t going to know whether he should thank him or punch him.

 The day after that, he met Galina at her work, with a bouquet of flowers and a bottle of wine, making certain that EVERYONE in her building saw them. “You’ve been doing enough cooking; let a man take you to dinner for once?”  Judging from the looks on some of the men’s faces, once that “sailor” left, there would be a bit of a competition to pick her up. _Good_. Bond loved it when everyone came out ahead, and it was an easy way to pay her back for a safe house. Taking her out for dinner paid dividends that evening. Bond did her future husband a favor and taught her how to give a blow job properly.

On the twenty-eighth he told her that he had to be getting back to his ship, soon.  “I’ve already put it off too long,” he told her sadly.

She insisted on going in late the next day so she could cook him a proper dinner tonight and send him off in the morning with a proper breakfast. _Damn, he was going to go home with some extra weight on him._ He took her to her work just after lunch‑making sure that he gave her a kiss that showed her off to her office when he did so‑and walked away. He had new clothes, a phone with internet, was rested and well fed‑he even had some extra money in his pocket; all he had to do now, was go home. He’d want a bit more money for that.

He hit the real gambling establishments, the ones where people went intending to bet, not just an idle game in a bar. He made a point of winning and losing, moving around, and always ending up a bit ahead‑ sometimes a lot ahead.  He finally found one of the places where they had a variety of games, and a variety of women; Bond was casually enjoying both.

There was a bit of a fuss that evening. He overheard some people talking about out of town visitors: one of the big crime bosses, it seemed, was paying a visit. Bond was trying to decide whether he should slip out before he got mixed up in it, or see if he could play that to his advantage, when one of the women who worked there came up to him.

“My employer wanted to let you know that there is a high stakes game just starting in the back.”

“Are you included?” Bond had been playing at being easily distracted, and she certainly would have distracted most men.

“Perhaps.” She smiled a seductive smile that never reached her eyes.

Bond looked around, none of the goons seemed to be trying to block him from leaving… so they probably just wanted to win back some of their money.  Sometimes losing money got you a better contact than winning…

Bond shrugged, “Sure.”

He was shown into the back and upstairs.  There was a MUCH better class of guard at the door, the kind with hard eyes and no hesitation to kill. Bond hesitated, but the man looked… _deferential?_ at him.

“They’re expecting you, Sir. You have interesting friends,” the hard-eyed guard said, holding the door open.

He walked into what was certainly a trap, but for some reason nothing was setting off his usual alarms. “I didn’t think I knew anyone in this city,” Bond said casually.

The room was set up for a meeting, not a game. There was a hallway and some visible bedrooms. There were a number of very hard eyed Russian men that he did NOT know, and a smaller man behind them at a table full of food with an antique samovar on it. The smaller man poured himself a cup of tea.

“So, James,” Jim said as he turned around with his cup of tea. “Do you think you can forgive us for rescuing you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments are my life.  
> still arguing with migraines but a bit better


	9. 1nfiltr8r

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All my old friends and secrets

Q woke up, stiff and aching with a splitting headache. He sat up and the room spun. Someone grabbed him by the shoulders and made him take a few sips of something. He was eventually handed a pill, which he took in the abiding hope that it was poison. He must have said that out loud because Jim laughed.

He fell back on the pillows. _Pillows? Yes he was in a bed somewhere_.  “You drugged me.” He tried to glare but it was too painful.

“Yes, of course I did.  If I had known you had a problem with flying I could have made other plans in advance, but I did the best I could with what I had.”

“Where are we?”

“A charming little city where I have some professional contacts.  It’s the nearest actual city to where the hotel was.”

Q wanted to lie there and be miserable for a while, but Jim seemed to be intent on making him get up. “Moving around will help, so will drinking more. Come on, up you go!” Jim’s cheerful voice was getting on Q’s nerves. Q snarled at him about caffeine.

Jim stopped and looked a bit startled at him. “Goodness, aren’t you Mr. Grouchy Pants!”

Q let Jim drag him out of the bedroom and make him get food.  There were a large number of very nasty looking characters who all seemed to be a bit nervous about Jim. 

“This is my computer expert. He’s a bit hungover, do forgive him. I had to drug him to get him here.” Jim said pleasantly. It bothered Q that none of them seemed at all upset, or even surprised, by that.

“Roger, darling?” _Oh, right, his airplane –shudder ‑ ticket had been in the name of Roger._

“Yes?” Q was trying to make this weird tea pot work.  One of the men came over and got him tea.  The guy had what looked like a submachine gun under his jacket.

“These nice people have gotten you internet access.  While you are getting your manners back, I’ll be having a bit of a meeting. Adrik here will help you.”

Adrik was a very attractive man with blue eyes almost the same shade as Bond’s.  Luckily he spoke English.  He escorted Q to another room. Q drank the surprisingly good tea, and got himself into the Russian internet.

“Your boss is looking for someone; we have been helping with the search,” Adrik nodded.

Q nodded back, “He’ll be hard to find. If he was easy to find the bad guys would have found him by now.” Q looked up at him, “Look, my head is pounding; can you just keep bringing me tea, water, and fruit until I stop trying to bite people?”

Adrik laughed, and put down a bowl of fruit, a cup of some kind of yogurt or something, a glass of water, and a fresh cup of tea. Q proclaimed his undying love and went back to work.

Within fifteen minutes Q had made contact with some old hacker friends.

It’s been too long, but 1nfiltr8r is online.  Your weather sucks, Q typed into the chat room, one most people couldn’t even find. Who’s online?  He was running his access through a German server, and saying he was in Russia. He figured they would assume he was back in London.

Dude! You finally came back to the dark side? MXX25 said cheerfully.

Temporarily, he replied. A friend of mine ran into a jam, I’m helping them out.

He explained that they had been supposed to be at the hotel that blew up.  They might have been in it, or might not.  I notice there’s a man hunt going on, on the QT so… thought I would ask.

You STILL working for the govt.  bro? Give it up, we have prettier girls. RabbitRabbit was online.

Yes, I am, this isn’t their job though, it’s personal. And you know I don’t give a shit about girls.

If you’re looking for the missing guy, P’s lapdogs are looking too. ‑ RabbitRabbit

Fuck.

Yeah. Tortie‑Q didn’t know them‑ said, They bombed the place, probably trying to clean up loose ends.

WHY? I mean, it looked that way but they could have just arrested everyone.

This way you don’t have anyone bitching about rules.  Hotel blew up, terrorists… oh, you gonna admit you had SPIES in town?   if they arrested anyone they gotta do paperwork.  ‑MXX25

Fuck. Well if you see him first?  I got access codes to Harrod’s and the security cameras for a helluva lot of dressings rooms for the first guy who gets him to me.

No shit? ‑Tortie

Ask MXX25, I don’t bluff.

True.  He got me into some hella nice places. ‑MXX25

Personal? Not business? ‑L14R _Holy shit, L14R was online?_

Good to SEE you, L14R, It’s been ages, thought you’d ghosted! Yeah, personal. Very. As in I’m technically AWOL.  

Woah. ‑Tortie

YOU… are AWOL?  YOU?!!!‑L14R

Q winced. Yes.

OK, I take it he’s cute? ‑L14R

Q winced harder. YES, he is.

If you end up in Moscow I want to meet him. ‑L14R

I will fucking GIFT wrap him for you in London if you find him and I can get him home.

I’ll look for him. ‑L14R

Q looked at the timer counting down and logged out before anyone could trace his routing.

He was starting to feel a tiny bit better.  He spent an hour just surfing around the internet while his headache went away.  He sort of idly tapped into the security for the building, and wished he hadn’t.  There were some girls in some of the rooms; the doors locked from the outside.  Q knew enough about criminal enterprises to make some educated guesses about that.  They had a casino downstairs, and a bar.  There was a blonde man with a beautiful woman on his lap; he was stroking down her back and holding his cards exactly the way Bond did on an op.  Q sighed wistfully. _It wasn’t Bond, he was clearly a local guy, with a beard… and the same hair color… and the same way of holding a girl on his lap…_

Q stared.

“Can… can you get me Jim?” he asked Adrik.

Adrik nodded and went out.

Jim walked in a minute later. “Roger, darling, have you gotten your manners back yet?”

“I don’t have any when I’m working,” Q said flatly. “But I found B-James.”

Jim blinked a lot and his voice softened, “You found him? Already?”

Q turned the screen to face him. “It wasn’t difficult: he’s downstairs.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> seriously dont mess with me (or Q) pre=caffeine


	10. all together now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW Safe, Sane, and consensual are sort of foreign concepts for Jim, really. bad BDSM behavior.

Bond was still getting his mind wrapped around Jim being HERE when Jim said cheerfully: “Not here, James. Come along, we’ll chat in my suite.”

James let himself get led along a hallway to a Master Suite door.  It opened into a large sitting room/conference room.  He was trying to figure out what the HELL Jim was doing here, and how he’d found him, when Jim stopped suddenly inside the room and purred up at him, “You know, I think that beard suits you,” and pulled him down into a kiss.

Bond wasn’t a prisoner, there were no hostages, and he didn’t give a flying damn… He bit into Jim’s lip and crushed him into his arms. Jim did something to a nerve juncture in Bond’s back and his legs folded out from under him. He didn’t let go and pulled Jim down with him; Jim never stopped kissing him, either. Jim pulled his bleeding lip away and rubbed into Bond’s beard, then he bit his jaw; the beard blunted some of it. Bond was just getting ready to push him up into the wall‑his legs were finally working again‑ when Q’s dry, professional voice came across the comm link.

“If you two are QUITE finished, I believe we have a briefing to get to?”

_…except Bond didn’t have a comm link._

Jim and James stared up at Q leaning in one of the doorways. He shook his head sadly, “Children, both of you. Get in here.”

Bond was beginning to think he’d been exposed to a really potent hallucinogen on a mission, again. “Q?”

Jim got up and brushed himself off cheerfully. “You’re really quite peculiar, Q: you do change moods so quickly.”

Q pointed to chairs. “Sit. Briefing.” He looked at Bond thoughtfully, and then smiled faintly, “Although it’s true, the beard does suit you.” Then Bond could see the Quartermaster step back in, and Q finished drily, “So, Bond, I suppose it’s too much to hope for that you have ANY of the equipment I sent you out with?”

Bond grinned, “I thought you knew me by now, Q. Not a single bit. Now what the HELL are you doing here?”

Jim licked some blood off his lip, looking entirely unconcerned. “Q was concerned and asked me to help rescue you.”

Bond stared at Jim and then at Q, “Where did you get the idea I needed rescuing?”

“Errr… well, you apparently don’t, I suppose.” Q fidgeted faintly.

Jim dabbed some lip balm on the bite. “You look well, James. It’s a bad time of year to be at loose ends in this neighborhood, but you don’t look frostbitten or anything.”

“Yes, well, I apparently don’t get sent to tropical beaches anymore; punishment for being too good at my job, I guess… Seriously? What made you think I needed to be rescued?!”

“Q was worried and asked me for help.  I was concerned that Mycroft had sent you here to get killed, given the political situation.”

Bond stopped at that. “Oh. Hmm, yes that could be an issue.”

Q rubbed his forehead, “Can anyone explain to me yet why Mycroft would want Bond killed?”

Jim shrugged and said, “He’s jealous,” at about the same time Bond said, “They’re exes.”

Q stared at both of them appalled. “Wait… Mycroft? Mycroft‑ the ‘apparently secretly running most of the intelligence for the UK’ Mycroft?!  Was dating JIM?!”

“It was a long time ago,” Jim said pleasantly, putting his hand on Bond’s arm. “My tastes have improved.”

“Red hair, green eyes…” Q muttered, then looked up at Jim slightly unfocused, “He’s the boyfriend I was going to help with?”

“Yes, but don’t worry about that now.”

“Q?” Bond looked at the slight vagueness around his eyes. “Quartermaster.”

Q blinked and was back. “Right, anyway, so now we just have to get you home.  I have some information from the hackers I know: apparently the President’s agents are looking for you directly.”

“What?” Jim looked at Q sharply. “When did you find that out?”

“Right before I found Bond,” Q replied, and then looked down at his phone. “I’m getting information sent to a drop box.  I should know a lot more soon.” He looked up at the two of them. “I suspect the agent we had here is compromised, and was used to get everyone in one place.  According to one of my sources, it was simpler for them to take out the hotel and blame terrorists, since none of the other governments could afford to admit to spying.  If they’d arrested or captured people officially, however, they would have had to account for them.”

James nodded. “Makes sense.”

Jim tilted his head and nodded, “Yes, very efficient.  Alright, probably not Mycroft then.” He shrugged. “Well, as long as we’re here, we can still give you a hand getting home.” He grinned at Bond. “Assuming you actually want to come back to England? You do seem to blend in well.”

Bond shook his head, “I wanted to be home before Christmas, but my hotel blew up… Wait, seriously.” He stared at Q. “What the HELL are you doing here? It’s an insane security risk.”

“M put me on leave so I wouldn’t meddle,” Q admitted finally.

“Oh, well THAT worked,” Bond snorted. Jim giggled.

Q sat down, and lost a bit of the “Quartermaster” edge. “Well I was worried. M told me not to be, but I was worried.”

“Did you know Q didn’t like to fly?” Jim asked. Q shuddered.

“Yes.” Bond’s eyes widened. “Q, how did you GET here?”

“Plane.” Q shuddered more.

“He VOLUNTARILY got on a plane in Heathrow,” Jim said beaming at Q, “because he was worried about you.  I mean, after that I had to drug him, but still, he tried.”

The shock was finally wearing off of Bond just a bit. “So for whatever reason, Q thought I needed rescuing, and came to you, and you thought it might have been Mycroft, so you both came to get me?” _and Q… Q got on a plane. For me. That was a stupid idiotic thing to do and I may have to kill him, but he did that for me._

“That’s about it, yes.”

Bond rubbed his forehead in a pained fashion. Q muttered, “You look like M when you do that.”

“Don’t remind me,” Bond grumbled. “Ok, Q,” he said looking up and fixing Q with those insanely blue eyes. “HOW did you contact Jim?”

Q started looking anywhere but at Bond. Bond looked at Jim, who just smiled at him.

“You two have been in touch the whole time?”

“No!” Q said sharply. “Well, I mean, no, not really. I just… I just knew how to contact him... I mean I thought it should work, and it did.”

“What, you put a crossword in?”

Q blinked a lot. Jim said pleasantly, “Yes, let’s say he did that. I like that story.”

“How did you‑“ James started to repeat but Jim cut him off.

“Did you know that I missed a LOT about Q darling’s background?”

“No, I assumed you looked him up while you had him.”

“Well I did, but obviously not enough!”

“Oh, God… do we HAVE to go over this now?” Q flushed deep red.

“Are we done with the briefing?” James asked matter of factly.

“Well, other than how we’re getting you out of here,” Q said.

“Tsk!” Jim waved a hand, “These boys smuggle people in and out all the time. I’ll just pay them to smuggle Bond out, and we go back out on‑“

“I am not getting in that plane,” Q said firmly.

“Yes‑yes, you are.  I can put you under in advance, and you’ll be nice and calm‑“

“NO.”

“Yes, Q. If you’re all finished being cranky about it…”

Jim got up and walked over to Q. Bond was mostly looking amused between the two of them, right up until Jim grabbed Q by the throat and started to squeeze.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> errr.... he means well? for Jim?


	11. Games people play , Ground rules

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> safe word and limits discussion.  
> these guys still aren't really a good example

Bond was over before he thought, and had Jim thrown away from Q. He held a gun on Jim as he reached down to help Q up. “The HELL, Jim?”

Jim just laughed‑really laughed, like he had in the restaurant‑ “I didn’t hurt him, I just wondered if he liked breath play as much as you did.”

 _Oh.  Well, from Jim, that might almost make sense, I guess,_ Bond thought.

“Uh… yeah, you…” Q wheezed a bit, “said something about that.” Q’s heart was racing, his adrenaline was pumping. T _he bastard scared the SHIT out of me, and Jim was grinning at him…. evilly, cruelly‑ but I can trust Jim…_

Jim’s voice dropped, not so much a purr as a growl, “Q, I said when we found James I’d have him on one side of you and me on the other…”

 _Ooooh shit_. Q gulped.  He could still feel the knife cuts under the bandage on his chest, and it suddenly felt like they’d started burning‑ as if they answered to Jim.  He tried to look up at James and felt his knees going out.

Bond heard what Jim said and looked at Q in confusion. _Eyes dilated, breathing fast, skin temperature climbing… adrenaline spike, no surprise, but… Q was submissive… He’d liked it ROUGH_ , back when Bond snapped him out of it, and he was looking up at him with panic and lust in his eyes.

Bond kept his grip on Q’s arm and pulled him around to face him, holding him up. “Q? I don’t think you’re in any condition to consent.”

Jim laughed, “Says the man who left teeth marks on him.”

Bond flinched slightly, but Q whined in the back of his throat. “I… I said we needed a safeword.”

Bond raised an eyebrow, “Yes, you did.” He glanced at Jim while he was pretty much holding Q up by the elbows.

Jim was looking predatory. “Apparently he conditioned as easily as he did because he already had practice going under for his Doms. I just… enhanced it.”

“Q? That’s hard to picture.”

“Well, it was hard for me to picture him being stroppy and obnoxious until I saw it.”

Q pulled himself to his feet with an effort. “I keep my work and play times rather strictly… separate.” He collapsed onto the couch.

Jim came up and put his hand on Bond’s arm. He dropped his voice to a sensual purr, “I suggested that you could  hold him down and have him, the way you’ve wanted to, while I have a bit of fun on the other side of him….”  Bond could see Q turning beet red, but he wasn’t arguing.

“I did rather get a chance to work him over when he came to me for help… but I was being fair, after all.” Jim looked up at James with a positively evil smirk, “I kept it strictly to riding crop and knives.  You two have been waiting so long; you should have some fun‑just the two of you‑first. Don’t mind me; I’ll just watch.”

Q moaned with his hands over his face. “Look, I know. I’ve got some really fucked up habits, ok? You don’t have to be into that, I was just worried about you.”

 _Q was worried about him.  Jim bothered to come get him‑mostly out of spite, but still…_ Bond stared at Q, then at Jim, then back at Q. “Seriously? You were into stuff like this BEFORE?”

Q looked at the floor, the wall, the pattern on the chair. “Yes.  I haven’t actually been able to play much since coming to work for M‑ security concerns, you know.  I... I think it’s why I sort of fixated on…”

“On me seducing people?”

“Well, um... Some of them.”

“Like Peru.”   _Like that time with Jim listening; like interrogating someone with sex; like I did to you._

Q flushed. “Yes.” He took a deep breath, “I have… I have a hell of a control kink, ok? Jim made me strip and turn around for him and I almost passed out.”

Bond looked thoughtfully at Jim. “Are you influencing him?”

“Only in the sense of playing to his interests,” Jim grinned.

“I take advantage of people on the job,” Bond said tiredly. “I don’t do it for fun. In MY personal life I’ve developed a phobia about lack of consent.”

“Really?” Jim  blinked at him. “What an odd quirk.”

“That’s…” Q was looking at him. “That’s really nice, actually.”

“I’m not NICE, Q,” Bond said drily.  “It’s just that lack of consent is too much like a mission these days: it’s WORK.”

Jim brightened up, “OOOh, yes, like poor Q saying needles are too much like hospitals now.”

Bond nodded. “Safewords?”

Q looked up hopefully, “We were using colors, and I use whatever the club used, or something like refrigerator or aardvark.”

Jim looked pleasantly at Bond. “You?”

“It doesn’t normally come up; I only sub on missions, in which case I use standard safe words.” Bond tensed. “But if I ever say ‘Vesper’, back the fuck off or I’ll kill you‑EVEN if you’re trying to sub.”

Q recoiled. Jim looked a bit taken aback.

“Do you have something a bit less drastic?” Jim asked after a bit of a pause.

“Whiskey.” Bond shrugged. “It means this isn’t fun anymore: it’s either just NOT sexy, or it hurts too much. Other than that, I can use whatever.”

“Why do I get the feeling there’s a story here…”

“There is. It’s ugly.”

“This is why I hate these discussions,” Jim shrugged. “They spoil the mood.”

“We don’t play without it,” Bond said firmly. “Like I said, otherwise it’s WORK.”

“Yes, well I use the color system, or whatever. I don’t care much. I generally figure if you manage to put me down you won’t actually stop if I ask.” Jim shrugged.

Bond looked at Jim with the flattest, hardest eyes Jim had ever seen. “If it’s work, I won’t.  If it’s personal? It’s absolute. You say stop‑in a way I recognize‑ and it STOPS.” He sat back. “Oh, and if you blow past MY safe word? You better never let me up again.”

“Huh… Actually play fair? By the rules?” Jim sounded like he was testing a foreign word out.

Q shrugged sort of nervously. “I only do topping as work‑ missions, that sort of thing. Look, as a hacker, or a Quartermaster, you get the fuck out of my way because I’m in charge.” 

Jim smiled, “Yes, it was a bit of a shock.”

“In the world of computers, I’m a super predator.” Q was sitting up, completely in control, and his words had some punch. “When I’m working? Follow my lead or get the fuck out of my way.”  He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “All of which goes out the window in my sex life.”

“It is a hell of a transition, from being bent over my desk taking a switch, to that.”

Q flinched, “Yeah, and it’s cost me a lot of my relationships.  There just aren’t many people who can BE my dom in the bedroom, and follow my lead outside of it.”

“I can,” Bond said, suddenly realizing that somewhere, somehow, despite everything… he TRUSTED Q.

“I was… I was hoping.”

Jim frowned. “I… I am NOT good at rules.  I usually do safe words because other people need them, and it makes them nervous if they don’t have them.” He looked at Bond, “This may take some practice.  However it shouldn’t be an issue with a third party.” He nodded at Q.

Bond looked thoughtfully at Jim. He nodded slowly. “As long as neither of us is trying to top the other one, we shouldn’t hit any snags, but if it was just us… we might. I’d actually been concerned about that.”

“Right! So… Q hasn’t done breath play, and his first experience with knives was with me… but‑“

“What DID you two do?”

“He... uh... had me on a leash, tied me up, made me strip.” Q was blushing insanely. “Then he had me bend over his desk while he hit me with a riding crop.  He put a collar on me, tied me down, and, um... did something to my chest involving a knife.  It’s all sort of a haze of endorphins.  I do remember him asking me if I wanted to safeword out, though.”

“I initialed him,” Jim said cheerfully in response to Bond’s questioning look. “Matching your bite mark. After all, he does belong to us both.”

 _Yes, I suppose he does_. Bond sighed, “An awful lot of things people do in BDSM just has bad memories for me.  I’ve had people carve me up‑ they didn’t do it for fun.  I’ve been hit with a cattle prod for questioning. It would probably take a lot of work to think of any of that as ‘fun’. I can do it to someone else, for their sake, but as far as TO me? We’re right back to ‘it’s work’.”

“How awful!” Jim said, patting Bond’s arm worriedly. “Maybe I can help? I’m very good.”

“Let’s work on finding out if we can develop enough trust to get to that point. Fair?”

“Fine by me,” Jim shrugged.

“Good by me,” Q said nodding.

“You haven’t told me any hard limits for you, Jim,” Bond said, stretching his legs out and standing up.

“I don’t have any.”

“None?”

“No. I have a simple practice of finding a way to enjoy almost anything; really, it’s why I survived breaking up with Mycroft.” He giggled, “It’s also why he can’t really question me: he knows I’d just enjoy it too much.” He smiled, hands clasped around his knee. “I do hope to return the favor someday, though. I want to make him scream.”

Bond wanted to kill Mycroft then: _Vesper_ echoed somewhere in the back of his mind.

Q muttered, “There is not enough booze in this whole country to make this sexy.”

Jim smiled at him, “You don’t need booze, darling, you’ve got us‑ we make everything sexy. Bedroom’s that way. You two get comfie; I’ll go get the toys.”

And Jim walked out, humming cheerfully.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, Q is into hard play and being scared, and his tasted run to bad boys and dangerous men- but Bond is right to be concerned about his consent.  
> Bond is all kinds of messed up  
> and as you just heard? Jim is messed up worse


	12. Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: explicit sex, breath-play, misogynistic language

“He’s really insane, isn’t he?” Q asked sadly. “I don’t get it, he goes from being the most comforting person in the world‑“

“THAT’s the conditioning.”

“Cheerful, funny, kind, considerate… and then he sounds like someone from the Addams family or something, like being interrogated is all in good fun.”

“Yes, he’s pretty messed up,” Bond nodded. “Funnily enough, I wonder if having someone work with him on listening to his consent might help; from what he said, no one respected it.” _Apparently that included Mycroft._

“You’re serious, about...”

“Deadly serious, Q.” Bond walked him into the bedroom. “I do things at work that range from bending consent, to ignoring it, to outright finding out what someone fears most and doing that.” He looked at Q. “I am NOT a nice guy, Q. I just don’t like bringing work into my personal bedroom.”

Q looked at Bond thoughtfully, “Is that why you weren’t really chasing any girls at the office?  Because it’s work? You talk a good game, and I know you’ve actually taken a few to bed, but…”

Bond shrugged. “Girls are for sport.  I enjoy it, but…” He looked thoughtful, and started stripping out of his clothes. “What girls can I talk to, other than the other agents? And mixing two field agents is usually a disaster.”

Q had seen Bond nude often enough, but only on security cameras; now he was standing in the same room wearing a couple of knives and a gun.

“Wow.” Q couldn’t stop staring.  _He was all muscle_. Q started inventorying scars.

“Not like you haven’t seen me naked.” Bond sounded amused

“Not in person, I haven’t.”

“Oh good, I didn’t miss anything!” Jim walked in and closed the door behind him. He had a bag and an armload of leather straps.

“Do I take it,” Q said through what had to be some kind of heat haze, “that YOU’VE seen him naked?”

“James? I’ve had him stripped and tied down twice, but we weren’t playing.” Jim giggled, “I did somewhat threaten to have him walk in to visit you nude, so he couldn’t smuggle any weapons… but I thought you would pull your injuries.”

Q sagged onto the bed. “Yeah, I would have pulled something all right.”

“Anyway!” Jim said cheerfully. “ I found more lubrication. Lots of straps, I liberated a bit of rope, and I found a few paddles and flogs. I have my own toys, of course, but those are mostly knives and needles.”

 _And didn’t that tell me a lot about his background._ “Well,” Bond looked thoughtfully at Jim, “I think we have an issue–aside from the fact that I doubt we need toys, or rope.”

“That is?”

“No way I trust you to be out of my immediate sight, fully armed, while I’m trying to be social.”

Jim tilted his head. “Then?”

“Strip. You can watch from the bed or join in, I don’t care.”

A slow smile escaped the corners of Jim’s mouth and worked its way up to his eyes. “Alright.” He started peeling out of his suit, carefully hanging items up and folding them.

Bond looked at Q. “At any time, even if you just need a breather, you say so.  I’m still not a hundred percent you can really cons‑“

Q shut him up the only way he knew how, short of yelling at him to go report to M: he reached around his neck and kissed him.  Bond kissed him back gently, and Q whined.

“Kiss me like you mean it, James,” Q said huskily, “or stop fooling around and we’ll get back to work.”

Bond muttered, “You asked for it,” and pulled Q in, putting both of Q’s hands casually behind his back with one hand. Q started breathing hard and Bond leaned in and KISSED him.  He pulled Q’s lower lip into his mouth and held it there with his teeth, while effortlessly pulling Q up onto his toes, holding him pinned with his hands behind his back.

Bond let his lip go, and breathed onto Q’s neck.  Q just shivered, hanging there pressed up against Bond’s chest.  Bond was a furnace.

“Ask for it,” Bond growled. “Tell me what you want.”

Q really wasn’t used to giving a dom this much direction, but he pulled his scattered wits back together as best he could. “B-Bite me, mark me… I love how strong you are…”

That was apparently enough, because Bond suddenly turned eyes like blue fire on him, and a predatory look dropped over his face. “Oh?”

Bond crushed Q into his chest, the hand holding his wrists clenched shut; it may as well have been an iron manacle.  Q was struggling to keep up on his toes, to keep the weight off his wrists.  Bond started slowly sliding his teeth down Q’s jaw and neck, growling. Q was being pulled in with the inexorability of a machine, until the hand holding his wrists behind him had him almost entirely off the floor, pressed up against Bond full length, tight enough to make it difficult to breathe.  Bond covered his mouth with a kiss and leaned in until he covered Q’s nose with his cheek. Q suddenly couldn’t breathe at all.  He started to panic, but he couldn’t move.  Just when the panic got almost intolerable, Bond rolled his head and let Q breathe again; he never stopped kissing him.  By the third time, Q had given up any attempt to keep up on his own feet, and he couldn’t think. He was just an object that sensation traveled through.

Bond put him down on the bed‑next to Jim, he hazily realized, who was still in his underwear‑ and started stripping the clothes off of him.  Jim dragged his fingers back through Q’s hair, and Q made a sound suspiciously like a purr.

Jim slid his shirt off of him, while Bond worked on his socks. Q made a sort of fluttered movement of one hand and Bond’s hand snapped down on it like a vice. Slowly Bond moved it up to the side, handing it off to Jim.  Jim started sucking on Q’s fingers gently.

Q thought he would go insane. Jim was all soft control, and Bond was like pure gravity, crushing any attempt to move, or resist.

Bond rolled Q to face Jim, who was still gently nipping and sucking at his fingers, and hands that felt like they could crush him started dragging down his chest, pulling Q back against the heat and hardness of James’ chest. His hands touched the bandage, where Jim had cut him, once, and then avoided it. Bond closed his mouth over the back of Q’s neck and held him there with his teeth.  It was a clear threat‑ Q felt like Bond could bite right through him‑ but the teeth just made dents, holding him there. 

Q was shivering, and he distantly heard little gasping noises‑he thought they were his.

“Allow me,” Jim said lightly, and slid down Q’s front and then there was wet, and pleasure and teeth just this side of pain.  He distantly became aware of more wet, behind him, and then Bond was pulling him down onto his length. Q had had bigger men, but Bond wielded his body like an instrument, and every sensation was perfectly placed. Q realized with a shock that he was begging.

“More… please… God…”

Eventually he was pulled into Bond at full length, still being crushed back to his chest, with Jim teasing him mercilessly in front with his mouth.

 Jim tilted his head up and looked at Bond, looking down with his teeth still holding Q’s neck.  Blue eyes gleamed down through Q’s hair. Jim thought it looked like a wolf staring at you through a thicket.

Bond suddenly moved his hips and a shockwave traveled through Q. “Ah!”

Q hadn’t thought it was possible, but that one sharp motion finished him. He came suddenly in Jim’s mouth.  Jim giggled; he could feel it around himself.

He expected Bond to finish up quickly, after that; Bond didn’t.  He started moving steadily, pulling out and back in full length: Q was already hypersensitive, especially after his orgasm.

“Stop, I can’t… more… Oh God… too… ”

Bond moved his mouth away from the back of Q’s neck and growled in his ear. Bond’s arms moved across his chest and captured his wrists again. Bond had him in what was not so much an embrace as a pressure lock.

Jim smirked up at Bond‑Q’s eyes were looking  at something miles away, while increasingly incoherent noises poured out of him‑ and flicked his tongue at the underside of Q’s cock. Something between a howl and a moan poured out of Q.  Jim moved down and started working on Bond and Q together. Jim’s fingers explored.  He swallowed Q down and squeezed a bit more lube onto his fingers.  He moved a slick finger into Bond.  Bond’s growl changed pitch just slightly.  Jim giggled around Q and thought it reminded him of a Theremin.  He smiled, and ran his teeth over Q; Q made a high-pitched, keening wail.  He moved more fingers into Bond and the bass notes raised and lowered.  Jim started playing them like music.

Bond came into Q, and slowly released the pressure around his chest. Q was fairly certain he’d cum a dozen times, but he was too incoherent to tell if dozen was twice, or twelve.   Jim moved back up and put his hands on either side of Q’s face, staring into eyes completely glazed. Q was so incredibly vulnerable right now.  He kissed him, and had a moments pleasant thought of suffocating him right now, feeling him spasm and die under him, but Q was far too valuable for that. He pulled back to let him breath and arms like steel cables were around Q and around his back and Bond stared at him past Q’s glazed open mouthed face and growled, “Your turn.”

~

Jim stared into Bond’s face and there was brutal control, death, and possession in the way James looked at him. Jim smiled back at him and licked his lips. “Whatever did you have in mind, James?”

Bond slid Q down between them. Q might have been a bit out of it, but he took direction: he moved down and started working on Jim with his mouth.

Bond pulled Jim in. Jim reflexively put his hands up… and realized his mistake too late.  His elbows were bent, hands flat against James’ chest, and James had his arms locked‑he had no leverage.

Jim’s eyes flew open and he stared into blue eyes that had no mercy in them at all.

“I believe I owe you for that kiss,” Bond growled and captured Jim’s mouth.

  _He’d been PRACTICING on Q,_ Jim suddenly realized with a bit of panic, as James cut off his air with his cheek. He was crushed against Bond’s chest; all he could do was flex his fingers, with Bond utterly controlling his mouth. Q was doing obscenely wonderful things to him, and probably to James, but he was hard pressed to keep his attention on anything but grabbing lung-fulls of air whenever Bond let him.

Q had pulled his boxers down, and had found the lube. Jim hazily heard James ordering Q to take him as Q moved into place and pushed.  Q was lying softly against his back, head resting on his shoulder, moving slowly inside him. Bond was crushing the air out of him, and only letting him breathe around his beard and mouth occasionally. He sank his teeth into Bond’s lip. Bond just growled and licked both of their lips together before he tightened his grip even more.  Bond moved his mouth forcing Jim’s head back and closed his mouth gently   under Jim’s chin, in the soft space of his jaw.  He spoke softly into Jim’s throat, “I’m going to let go of you; you’ll have about a second to safe word before you can’t.”

Jim drew in gasping, shallow sips of air, eyes wide, wondering if he should, and Bond suddenly let go.

Jim’s body responded automatically, inhaling desperately now that his chest could expand. He’d been able to breathe, but not deeply, and his animal instincts were demanding more air. A distant part of his mind realized what James had done, he was becoming light headed from hyperventilating, and his body didn’t understand, and kept trying to fight for more air. James’ hands flew deceptively lightly over nerve clusters on Jim’s body, and left fire in their wake as nerves were ordered to respond.

Bond pulled Jim’s shirt aside, seeing without surprise the scars making constellations on his chest, most of them very very old. He pushed himself into the space between Jim and Q’s body and started moving between them, and then he found a spot near Jim’s shoulder, where the scars seemed oldest and fewest, and he bit down, breaking the skin.  Jim arched into him, still hyperventilating, and then the combination of sensation, nerve firing, and hyperventilation met the adrenaline and endorphins from the bite and Jim locked in place.  Head thrown back, mouth open, eyes wide, his muscles spasmed and seized.  Q came again, Bond came again, Jim cried out once as his body fought itself‑ tried to pull itself apart, tried to breathe with muscles frozen in spasm‑ came and blacked out.

~

Q was just coherent enough to observe without thinking as Bond’s eyes went from laser intensity‑ from a terrifying glimpse into a reactor‑ to alert blue eyes, to blue eyes shuttered behind blond lashes.

His last thought, before he fell asleep on Jim’s bleeding shoulder, was that Jim had been so very right to have him reroute the suite’s camera feeds into his computer…

 


	13. Friends in low places

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> old friends from college and online... and Q has some tricks up his sleeve

Q woke up, again.  He’d woken up a few times during the night, and always had a hand on him, soothing and controlling him: sometimes it was Jim; sometimes James; sometimes he couldn’t tell. The two of them woke up differently, when they did. Jim woke up completely, all at once, looking around as though he was just idly curious, and then either going back to bed or moving away.  James seemed to come alert on instincts first: once a hand snapped out and unerringly grabbed Q by the wrist before Bond’s eyes had even opened. It was apparently a bad idea to move too quickly around a sleeping Bond.

Jim had had a nightmare of some sort in the early morning. When Jim started whimpering faintly, Q reacted reflexively, curling himself softly and protectively around the man. Bond simply moved his bulk closer, pushing them both into the wall, and turned away‑putting himself as a guard, even asleep.  None of them mentioned it when they woke up.

Q slipped out of bed first, pulled on his clothes‑ enough of them, anyway‑ and found them tea and the leftover fruit from last night.  By the time they were both dressed and cleaned up‑and Q was trying very hard not to look at the amount of blood on the sheets; even a little blood looks like a lot on white sheets‑ Q was logged in and working.

Jim walked up behind Q and started to reach out when Bond closed his hand around Jim’s wrist and pulled him away. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s don’t interrupt him when he’s ACTUALLY working, as opposed to staring at the computer trying not to blush.”

Jim looked at Bond thoughtfully, “He was surprisingly touchy when he woke up last time. He snapped at me!”

Q, without looking up, said, “You deserved it: you drugged me and I hadn’t had my caffeine.”

Jim looked boggled at Q, _He went from pliable submissive to snappish equal so quickly!_  then shrugged, “The mysteries of my little fluffy-haired myopic jewel…”  He shrugged up at Bond, “Well, we won’t be bored.”

Bond smirked, “Hardly.”

“We’ll go make arrangements for travel, Q. Come out after you’re social again.”

“Third cup of tea. No sooner,” Q said reaching out to sip at his cup.

Jim and Bond left to talk business. Q kept looking at the news, and the patterns of traffic on the web.  Around his fourth cup of tea he got a priority message from L14R: Read this, now, and a file. Q read it and the other note from RabbitRabbit.  Q sat frozen for a while before he got up and walked out of the room.

Q walked in to where James, Jim, and some of the mobsters were talking about getting them over the border.

“Sir?” Q’s voice was deceptively light, both Jim and James could hear the panicked edge behind it. “Could I talk to you for a second? Privately?”

James and Jim excused themselves, and they went into the bedroom where Q had been working.

“This is horribly bad, and I don’t understand it,” said Q.

“What?” Jim frowned, “What could be the problem?” Bond sat back as if he was about to receive a report from the Quartermaster.  Q felt immensely grateful for his support.

“This,” Q said bringing up two detailed photos: one of Bond; one of Jim. “These have been distributed to the police and border patrol. They have photos of both of you, identifying features‑ the works.”

“What do you mean, identifying features?” Bond asked.

Q was back to flipping through the information on his phone. “How would they even GET this?” Q asked suddenly, “Bond, do you have faint scarring on the back of your right hand? Looks like a letter?”

“Yes.”

“Jim, do you have a notable scar on your left arm? From a broken bone... and burn marks on your chest?”

“Maybe,” Jim whispered.

“Holy shit, they have your FINGERPRINTS!” Q looked up in shock. “This has been distributed to every border guard in the region. They got it this morning. How?”

“Mycroft,” hissed Jim. “It had to be Mycroft.”

“They have my photo, too,” Q said, dragging fingers through his hair. “Shit, shit, shit, shit.”

James nodded slowly, looking very much like an immobile cat. “So they also know we’re together.”

Q closed his eyes and clenched his fist around his phone.

“You got this from one of your computer friends?” Bond asked.

“Yes,” Q answered, very tensely. “One of the same ones I had looking for you in the first place. When the information updated they let me know.”

Jim looked at Bond, “It has suddenly become a great deal more difficult. The people I deal with will be less reliable with this level of search.”

James nodded, “We may just have to kill someone and steal a boat.”

Q, who had been standing very still with his eyes shut, suddenly started moving and talking in a jerky  rapid fire fashion: “Shit.  I gotta get a haircut and a change of clothes.  Do you guys have cash on you? Because we need Russian ID like right now.” He raced over to his laptop and started typing and opening up tabs. “I can get us ID but it will be easier if we have cash.  It’s gonna cost extra for the short notice, too.”

“You… can get Russian ID?” Bond blinked at him

“I know a guy,” Q said, leaving his laptop open and going back to typing frantically on his phone. “But he won’t take anything but cash or credit card numbers you swiped from civilians.”

“Credit card numbers…?” Bond asked, staring at Q as if he’d grown another head.

Jim blinked at Q a lot and then grinned, “You know a credit card scammer who deals in fake ID? YOU?!”

“Uh, yeah.” Q fidgeted and glanced at Jim, “Jim, can you trust any of these guys enough to get hair bleach, and a change of clothes for us?” Q flushed, pretending to be completely absorbed in whatever he was doing.

“Yeeeessss…” Jim drew out the word. “Q, whatever are you DOING?”

“Changing our identities. We’ll turn into a bunch of Russian, or maybe Finnish, folks…  Russian,” he said after a minute. “Jim and I can pass for college if we’re careful, James will be one of the older siblings, or a coworker? We’ll need some more guys so we aren’t a group of three. Maybe some girls?  If they’re looking for three guys, two brunettes and one blond, then we need to turn into something else.” Q was talking so fast that it was hard to understand him.

Bond was staring at him with an intensely curious look. “I thought you didn’t go in for all this field agent stuff, Q.”

“I don’t.”

Jim cocked his head, “Well, you talk a good game.”

Q’s phone buzzed; he looked down and started typing as a grin spread over his face. “Thank you for small favors. He was online. Bastard owes me.”

“Q? You’re beginning to alarm the heavily armed people… What are you doing?” Jim said pleasantly. Bond put a hand on Jim’s arm. _Trust the Quartermaster._

“Hang on.” Q typed rapidly across several conversations at once. After a few minutes of typing and frowning at a computer, Q grinned.

“Apparently? Turning us into a group of Russian tourists heading abroad. Our timing is fantastic: it’s the winter break starting tomorrow‑ EVERYONE travels then.  We won’t be a group of three, we won’t be traveling back to England, and if we can’t be blonde we can at least not look the same.” He stared at the phone and then switched to his laptop and started typing fast, obviously in a chat with someone.

Jim looked questioningly over at Bond, with a perfect, “Do you understand this?” look on his face.  Bond just grinned and shook his head.

“Tink says we’re going to Thailand,” Q announced finally. “We can pick up the new IDs on route to the airport. So we need our looks changed by then.” Q looked at Bond, “Honestly I think the beard changes your appearance enough.”

“Who is Tink?” Jim asked, beginning to sound impatient.

“Why, and how, are we going to Thailand?” asked James sounding… _actually, he sounded amused._

“Tink is a hacker buddy of mine, he kind-of sort-of went straight, sort-of, don’t ask. Anyway, he also runs a travel service in Russia.  He’s booking us into the group package to Thailand, and it will look like we booked this a MONTH ago, at least.” Q was evidently getting into one of his late night caffeine fueled whirlwinds that used to be seen in MI6 occasionally. “So we’ll be a group of over twenty, not three, almost all of them from the tech industry, all guys, all Russian, all heading for Thailand to soak up sun, Thai food, and probably indecently young girls.”

“Let me get this straight.” Bond said smiling at him. “You can get us fake Russian IDs, and have *already* gotten us booked on a group tour to Thailand, because you ‘know a guy’?”

“Um... several, actually‑ several guys. The IDs are a different guy from the travel agent, but they know each other.”

“How?” James asked, sounding a bit like he was torn between laughing, and throttling Q.

“Yes, HOW?” asked Jim, who sounded like he was definitely going to throttle Q.

“Well, before MI6 recruited me I was still a hacker, you know?  It’s a surprisingly small online community, once you get past the script kiddies.” Q fidgeted. “Running away from the government is… um... a cultural skill.”

Jim sat there opening and closing his mouth repeatedly.

Bond suddenly roared with laughter, “It’s always the quiet ones. Every damn time.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have read "Chained up" (Qs history) you know a few of these things already. but Q has a HISTORY of false identities and Russian friends.  
> smirk  
> yes i am dealing with the aftermath of weeks of migraines, so please bear with me


	14. Matchmaking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW Misogynistic attitudes, lack of sympathy, references to sex slavery and human trafficking (not explicit) see notes

It only took a few hours to get bleach and hair dye; the clothing took longer, but not that much.  One of the girls turned out to be a hairdresser in a prior life, and bleached and trimmed hair quite professionally. When it was all done, Q looked like a Russian college student, Jim looked like a young graduate, and Bond looked like trouble… but at least he looked like different trouble.

“Does it bother you that some of the girls are prisoners here?” Q asked quietly as he tried to get used to being sandy haired.

“I don’t let myself think about it,” Bond shrugged.

“No, or as James said, ‘I don’t let myself think about it’.  I just consult for them, darling.” Jim asked, admiring his now dark russet hair with a lighter streak off to one side. “I kind of like this look, actually.”

Q shut his eyes briefly and tried to “not think about it”.  Bond came over and tilted his chin up. “Quartermaster,” Bond said in his flat mission voice, despite his fingers on Q’s chin, “achieve the objective, survive, report.” _That was practically the Double-O mantra, Q knew_. “Right now achieving the objective is the same as surviving and getting home to report, so it’s even simpler.”

“I’m not a field agent, Bond,” Q said wryly.

“You’ll do,” Bond nodded firmly at him and went back to work.

“I was thinking…” Q said.

“Always dangerous,” smirked Jim.

“Bond, you look close enough to Adrik in some ways, I’m wondering if it might make more sense to have you use him for a photo.  ID photos are lousy no matter what.”

“Adrik?”

“One of the men here, he was keeping an eye on Q while I was busy,” Jim explained.

Adrik was called in, and while there really wasn’t THAT much of a resemblance, it was good enough for an ID photo of “Piotr” without a beard. When they were done with Q doctoring the photo on the computer, it looked remarkably plausible for a younger image of Bond, only with a different jawline‑and the beard took care of that.

Bond looked thoughtfully at Adrik. “You look like a fellow who would like to settle down, with some nice comfortable girl who can cook.”

Adrik looked startled at him and glanced at his boss, who shrugged. “Well, certainly, who wouldn’t?” he answered.

“Lots of fellows don’t want to, or they want the flashy girls.”

Adrik chuckled, “I prefer a girl who stays home, and knows her way around a kitchen.”

Bond grinned, “Let me tell you about this girl I know, apparently your cousin Piotr told you all about her before he went back to his ship…”

By the time Bond had finished describing Galina’s cooking, in detail, and the fact that some idiot had tossed her over, Adrik was practically drooling.

“Now you marry that girl and she’ll make you the sweetest wife any man ever had, but you break her heart and I’ll have to come back, eh?” Bond slapped him on the shoulder and gave him her address and phone number.

After they picked up the fake IDs, Jim finally asked the question Q had been dying to ask himself, “Alright, where did you meet this ‘Galina’ you set Adrik up with?”

Bond just frowned in confusion at them, “Where do you THINK I spent Christmas? I’m not going to stay out in the cold when there’s a warm girl with good food handy.”

Q just shook his head. “Only you, Bond.”

“No. Alec would have, too.” He grinned, “In a way, he helped me pick her up: I was out at the bar ‘mourning a brother in arms’ when I met her.”

“Who’s Alec?” Jim asked.

“He was Double-O Six. They haven’t reassigned his number yet; I think they think it’s unlucky.”

Q blinked, “Before my time then?”

“Just.”

“My condolences, Bond,” Q said sincerely. _It sounded as though Bond missed him._

Jim asked thoughtfully, “How did he die?” Q looked scandalized at him for asking.

“I killed him,” Bond said mildly. Q froze.

“A good friend then?” Jim asked.

“Two sides of the same coin,” Bond said distantly.

Jim nodded, “Better that you did it than some stranger.”

“True,” Bond said smiling faintly. “You’re right Jim, thank you for reminding me.”

Q stared back and forth between them. “You are utterly mad, both of you.”

Jim just smiled and said, “We’re all mad here, remember?” Bond just shrugged.

After a very long while, Q asked quietly, “Have… Have you thought about what we’ll need for the plane?  I don’t think I can handle it. It’s almost nine hours of flight time.”

Bond grinned, “We’ll drug you out of your mind, Q; half the passengers will be drunk anyway, if it’s a group tour.”

Jim grinned evilly, “Do you have anything you need to actually DO at this point, Q?”

“N-no… I mean I already called off the search for Bond from my friends.  It may have actually increased my rep, thinking that I found him before the locals did. I didn’t need to mention that he was just downstairs after all.

“The problem is that I don’t know if RabbitRabbit or the other guys know that the photo of the third guy is ME.  I mean L14R knows, but he knows what I look like in person; I don’t know if the others do.”

“You lost me there,” Bond said with a raised eyebrow.

Jim muttered, “This makes as much sense as the octopus.”

“Oh God.” Q dragged his hand down his face and took a deep breath; “L14R”‑Bond and Jim heard him say “liar” of course‑“actually went to Uni with me.  He’s a Russian hacker who went to school in England.  I know him in real space.  I have no idea if he works for the government‑ given that he got me those files first? Maybe he does… but we’re friends.  RabbitRabbit I’ve never met in person, I’m pretty sure he works for the government.  He tried to hack me once, I burned a few of his accounts, and we called a friendly truce.” Q looked a bit embarrassed, “I kind of like him. He has a sick sense of humor and He keeps jokingly trying to recruit me to Russia.”

“Is he joking?” Bond asked thoughtfully. _Q had a friend‑ a person he thought was a friend‑ in Russia, with access to those files, and knew others._ Bond sighed _. Later._

“Yes, he keeps talking up the Russian girls, even though he knows I don’t care.  It’s just teasing at this point.” Q shrugged, “If I ever wanted to leave England‑ and I have no idea why I would want to‑I bet he’d be happy to help, but he knows it won’t happen.” Q frowned, “I just don’t know if he would pin my hacker name to that photo.”

“Would Liar tell him?” Bond asked.

“No. MXX25 might, if he recognized me. We actually met at a hacker convention once, but that doesn’t mean he’d recognize my photo.”

“So it’s a good thing we changed your clothes, hair, and aren’t traveling in a group of three,” Bond said flatly. “Q, I hate to tell you this, but as far as assets go, right now? If anyone knew who you were… not just ‘that guy with Bond and Moriarty’, but who you are‑ they’d burn this city to the ground to get hold of you.”

Q closed his eyes and swallowed. “Yeah, I know. I left enough clues for the online folks to either think I’m in Germany‑after I had that meltdown in the airport, there might be records‑ or back in London.”

“Unless they identify your photo.”

“Right.”

Jim looked thoughtful, “Can you bribe Liar?”

“Err... Umm…” Q fidgeted and glanced at Bond. “I may have already promised you gift wrapped when we get back to London‑ whenever he visits.”

 _Then I’ll be able to find out if he’s dangerous, or how dangerous_. Bond laughed, “Planning on telling me?”

“Eventually…? I was kind of desperate.”

Jim looked intrigued. “Is Liar aware of your... tastes…?” Jim made it sound filthy, and Q shivered as his body responded.

“Yeah. He’s a switch.  He’s topped me a few times–it  doesn’t work, we’re just good friends– but he bottomed for Nikki.”

“Nikki?” Bond asked, blinking a bit. _We really need more on his background_ , he telegraphed at Jim.

 _Indeed we do_ , Jim agreed. “Who’s Nikki?” asked Jim.

“Huh? Oh, Nikki was a girl at the club near Uni.  She’s married now, two kids, doesn’t get to the socials or anything much‑kids you know. We exchange cards… why?”

Jim laughed, “Because I was beginning to wonder if you knew anyone ordinary.”

Bond shrugged, and then grinned at Jim, “We could interrogate him.”

Jim grinned back, “We could. We have hours to kill before we leave for the airport, we can get him alllll tired out.”

Q backed up into a wall, “Guys… Guys, no. We need to get some sleep.”

Jim just smiled, “I didn’t hear a safeword. Did you hear a safeword, James?”

Being the target of both of their attentions was terrifying; Q felt his pulse pounding in his ears.

“No. Now that you mention it.”

They pounced on him. 

He spent the next two hours restrained to the four corners of the bed, telling them anything they wanted to know‑ when he could speak coherently‑ and begging.  They kept the bruises below his shirt collar line.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jim Moriarty is NOT a good or nice guy (although for his own reasons he doesn't like human trafficking ... right now he needs these guys)
> 
> Bond is not a nice guy, and is used to ignoring all sorts of things to get a mission done, this isn't even in the top 10. he'll file a report n it when he gets home.
> 
> Q is really really upset, because Q is a nice guy. sigh.  
> Reeferences the events in "Chained Up" of course, with L14R, aka Taavi


	15. The city don’t know what the city is getting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If Bond says he knows a girl... duck.

True to their word, Q was drugged to a pleasantly buzzed uncaring state by the time they got to the airport. Jim was acting similarly, and steering Q, since Q couldn’t see without his glasses.  Meanwhile Bond struck up a conversation with one of the other men in the group about kids, and their inability to hold their drink.

By the time they went through check in, Jim and Q were just two more dozing young men boarding the early morning flight to Thailand, and James was matching shots with three of the older guys and talking about the Navy.

Jim played anti-social and drunk, or hung over, the entire trip, taking Q to the bathroom and giving him another dose halfway through. Bond spent the second half of the plane trip singing and trading jokes with a lot of the former military men.  He’d apparently convinced some of them they had been in the same area, if not the same ship.  Jim was half tempted to kill James by then. He also envied Q his drugged somnolence. They were away from any backup, disarmed, heading further away from any of his contacts, able to be recalled or arrested at any moment… and Bond looked like he was having a great time.  Jim resolved to get even, preferably in bed.  He kept himself occupied for the last hour of the flight plotting.

Jim didn’t feel safe until they were clear of the airport in Thailand.  He had some contacts in Bangkok, and quietly told James that. 

“Should we check into the group hotel until I can make contact?”

“Nah, I know a girl. We can stay with her,” Bond smiled.

Q woke up a bit more in the taxi on their way to Bond’s “girl”. Once it was explained, he looked warily at Jim. “This is a bad idea.”

“Why? Judging from the last one, we’ll probably get a home cooked meal from some chubby motherly type.”

Q shot him a pitying look, and started working on his phone.

~

As Jim dove behind a concrete barrier from the gun shots, Q‑ who was already there, sitting with his back to the concrete, playing a game on his phone‑ said, “Told you.”

Jim just stared at him in disbelief.

*

Much later the next day, after Bond finished inhaling apparently all the shrimp on the table and went back to continue “talking” to their host, Jim asked Q somewhat hesitantly, “Is this expected?”

“Yes.” Q sighed, happier now he had his glasses back on and was on solid ground. “It’s about what I expected, actually.  Most of the women Bond knows fall into two categories: love struck and sort of hopeful, or lethally angry and shooting at him.” He glanced in the direction of the bedroom, “Or both.”

“Ah. I was misinformed.”

Q sighed, “Statistical anomaly.  That time Bond was picking up an ordinary girl as cover.  Usually the girls he meets are involved with a mission.”  They both looked over at the wall as a high pitched shriek carried through from the bedroom.

Q cocked his head. “He’s teasing her. Probably holding her down and biting,” he said wistfully. He listened intently to the sounds carrying through the wall. “Yeah.”

“You… listened to a lot of this?” Jim asked as he stared in the direction of the bedroom, wondering idly how she was going to explain the bullet holes.

“YOU heard my fantasy life, you tell ME.”

“I just hadn’t realized you could tell what he was doing from the sounds…”

“I could give you the script,” Q muttered. “I had it pretty well timed, based on the noises they made, that way I could move around with just my earpiece in. I needed to know if I could go get a cup of tea, or if I had time to repair anything before he’d be moving on.”

Jim just smiled cheerfully. “How long do you think?”

“Well, she hasn’t tried to kill him since yesterday when we showed up, and she seems to be the cuddle after sex type… three or four hours before he comes up for more food, I guess.”

“Whatever will I do for three hours?” Q just had time to register the danger in that sentence before Jim had him on the floor.

The next day, fully re-supplied, rested, well fed, and with Bond NOT being shot at as he left for a change, they left Thailand.

*

“I am never rescuing you again, Bond,” Q said after they finished bringing him back up from a deep hypnotic state.

Bond was frankly a bit concerned that Jim had managed to keep him calm, pliable, and just slightly spacy looking, with nothing but some hypnotics and an MP3 player.

“Look at it this way, Q darling: at least we were able to get the ingredients for my favorite hypnotics.  You’d be quite badly off if we used regular tranquilizers for a twelve hour flight.”

Bond couldn’t help but wonder if Jim had done anything ELSE with him in the bathrooms when he re-dosed him, but decided not to ask right now.

“WHERE are we?”

“Belfast,” Jim said cheerfully.

“Oooooooooh God. I’m the only one with the wrong accent, aren’t I?”

Bond snorted. “Calm down, Q,” he said, sounding entirely Scots for a change. “You’re with us.”

Jim smiled, “You know, with that beard and that accent, you look quite the Scottish laird.”

“I am, technically.  I have an estate anyway, even if I never go there.”

Jim and Q both blinked at him a lot.

“Well we were just going to take the ferry to Stranraer and head south to London, but we could go north,” Jim said thoughtfully.

Bond snorted, “In January? You’re daft.” He shrugged, “Besides, no one is expected, the heat won’t even be on. We can just head back to London and get warm… ish.”

“Point.”

Q looked relieved, “No more planes?”

“No more planes, Q.”

“Well that’s good then.” Q frowned. “I left a message saying I was taking my vacation out of London, I didn’t want people worrying.  When is it?”

“January third –fourth, almost.”

“Feels like longer.”

Jim shrugged, “So, I know at least five pubs here in Belfast, or we can rest and get the ferry early.”

Q hugged himself, “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to be on the right side of the water to my home.”

“Someday we’ll have to take a cruise, Q: all three of us, someplace warm, alright?” Jim petted his hair.

Q nodded.

Bond smiled happily, “I haven’t been anyplace warm except on business in ages.  I have a good bit of vacation saved up.”

“I thought you took your vacation time out in a lump of several months, when you came home with the octopus?”

Jim turned to look at Q, “I thought that was a hallucination.”

Bond grinned, “Where did you hear about THAT Q? That was well before your time.”

“M told me, when she was telling me to stop worrying about you.”

“Someone has to explain this octopus story to me,” Jim said firmly.

They were part way through Bond’s retelling of “the octopus story” when there was a knock on the door. Bond had a knife out in an instant; Jim just wandered over and opened the door.

Q stared over as Jim opened the door and pulled a dangerous looking man down into a rather aggressive kiss.  The man looked vaguely familiar, but Q put it down to his being a “type”.

The man was kissing Jim back rather enthusiastically, but his eyes tracked over Jim’s shoulders to Q, and then to Bond.

Bond, meanwhile had put his knife away.

“Hullo, Moran,” he said, sounding quite familiar, although he was looking a bit surprised by the kiss.

“Bond,” he said as Jim pulled away from the kiss and dragged him in.

“You remember Sebastian, Q, don’t you?”

Q was once again of the opinion that he had missed SOME kind of important briefing. “No.  He looks vaguely familiar, but… no.”

Sebastian Moran was looking warily around the room. He finally pinched his nose and looked at his employer. “You’re not going to let me shoot them, are you?”

“Nonsense, we’ve been getting along splendidly, Sebie, we’re planning a cruise for later.”

Bond snickered as Moran just groaned.

“Sir,” – _rhymed with idiot, Q could hear it_ ‑“where have you been? First you tell me you’re heading Russia-ward, then our contacts report back that they have you on a detailed alert, and then you VANISHED.”

“Well I had to vanish, Sebastian darling, they were hunting for us… and Mycroft sent them my identification.”

Moran went deadly still. Bond nodded at him over Jim’s shoulder. “Lucky for us that Q here knew some contacts over that way, or it would have been a LOT harder to get out.”

“WHO is this? Other than another boyfriend?” Q asked desperately. _Bond evidently knew the man._

Bond nodded at him, “Sebastian Moran.  The man who shot those MI5 traitors.”

Q’s hand reflexively went to his side. “Oh… OH!” Q blinked up at him from the chair. “I don’t remember, I’m afraid, but thank you.  Um… please don’t shoot us. Why would you want to shoot us?”

Moran sighed, “Not YOU.” He nodded at Bond, “HIM.” Bond nodded pleasantly.

 Q tried to get the rules straight. “Jealous?” he said looking warily at Jim.

Jim just laughed, “Sebie? Don’t be silly, he knows he’s irreplaceable,” he said patting the man’s arm affectionately. “He’s just safety conscious.”

“It would be sensible,” Bond said pleasantly.  “We’re both professionals, Q. His job is to guard Jim, mine… isn’t.”

“Mad, the entire lot of you. Starkers.” Muttered Q.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you have read Sebastian Moran's backstory then you know that Jim is being kind by not making him answer that last question....


	16. There’s No Place Like Home

Sebastian had apparently brought firearms, knives, and new identification.  A minion of some kind was dispatched for hair dye.

“Thank you, I feel much happier armed,” Bond said, putting a pistol away somewhere into his clothing; it was following at least three knives that had also vanished. He rubbed a hand over his now hairless jaw. “Glad to be rid of that.”

“I LIKED the beard,” Jim pouted.

“I might use it again; why show it off around London?”

Q stared at his new identification, which was using a photo of him he had never seen before, but was definitely him, and looked entirely genuine.

“Oh, keep it Q, darling.  It never hurts to have extra identities.”

“Where did you get this photo?” He looked up at Jim. “I don’t want to know, do I?”

“No, dear.” Jim patted his head and stroked his hair back. By this point it was nearly automatic to lean into it and purr.

Bond sat down next to him on the sofa and put a possessive hand on his leg.

Sebastian just groaned again. “If you two start fighting over him…”

Q blushed horribly and stared at his phone.

“Nope!” Jim said cheerfully, “We have him divided left and right, or sometimes front and back.  He’s got some neutral territory‑“

“JIM!” Q wailed…

Sebastian just raised an eyebrow at Jim and glanced at Bond. Bond’s lip curled up in a very clear “don’t even think it.” Sebastian raised his hands, “Right. Like he was plutonium.”

Q tried to curl into a ball; it didn’t work.

Jim just kept stroking Q’s hair. “Anyway, you two need to go straight back to MI6, and tell M what Mycroft has done.” He smiled, “I need to go tell a few OTHER people what Mycroft has done, send a present to Sherlock, and go pay a visit to Mycroft.”

“Won’t he just shoot you?” Q asked worriedly.

“No, not by the time I’m done talking to people. Besides, Mycroft hates guns‑thinks they lack finesse. He’s much more likely to pull his umbrella knife on me.” Jim pulled Sebastian into his arm, on the side away from Q, “Anyway, about the octopus? No one is leaving until I hear the rest of this story.”

*

The trip back to MI6 was entirely uneventful.  Bond walked into M’s office just behind the poor secretary trying to announce him.

“Bond,” M said flatly, although there was a flicker of relief in her eyes. “It’s only been two weeks, didn’t like the weather?”

“I brought you back some things,” he said, pulling Q into the office, which got her eyebrows to go up in an alarmed fashion. “I got you something different, anyone can bring you Bailey’s.” He put a bottle of something deep red colored on the desk.

“What?” M said, staring at an extremely guilty looking Q as Bond closed the door and turned on the baffles.

Q reached forward and tapped something on M’s desk and said, “Black box.”  He nodded at Bond, and M. “Room secured.”

“RubyBlue Blackcurrant liquor; it’s quite good,” Bond said pleasantly nodding at the bottle.

With an effort born of years of experience dealing with Bond, she pulled her self together. She looked thoughtfully at the bottle. “You were supposed to be near Russia, Bond.  How did you end up in IRELAND?”

“By way of Thailand, actually,” said Q miserably. “I HATE planes.”

“You’ve had a haircut, Q, ”  M said  pleasantly. “It looks good on you. Now both of you sit down and tell me what happened before I have you both shot and put in medical.”

“You wouldn’t shoot to wound, M,” Bond said sounding hurt.

“I’m getting old, Bond; my aim isn’t what it used to be. Talk.”

It was something of a miracle that she managed to follow the two of them giving her a report, which seemed to consist entirely of apologies, excuses and odd anecdotes with information stitching them together.  It was worse than usual.

“Mycroft,” M said tiredly. “How certain?”

“Do you know anyone else who could have given the Russians this?” Bond nodded at Q, and he pushed the laptop over at her. 

She looked through the files slowly. “He does seem to be the likeliest option. That will be… difficult.” She frowned. “I have been looking into his behavior…”

“Jim said he’d handle it,” Q said tiredly.  The events were starting to catch up to him: he felt tired and wanted to go home.

M looked at him and appeared to realize he was at the end of his endurance. “Bond, take him home.  Report back in tomorrow or the next day, and I will want a REAL report from both of you at that time. Dismissed.”

Bond helped Q to his feet and they turned to leave.

“Q,” M said, sounding a bit tired, “If you’re going to be involved with an agent, you have to understand that this is what they DO. I’m very glad that you are loyal and willing to put yourself out for him‑ it’s a rare thing to find in our business‑ but turning yourself into a potential hostage never helps.”

“Yes, M. I’m sorry.”

“Report, on my desk, in full.”

“Yes, M.”

They walked out, Bond commenting, “She likes you; that’s good. She didn’t like my last one.”

“Who was he?”

“She. And her name was Vesper.”

*

Jim spent the day making contact with various MPs and people in position of influence.  Some of them he spoke with directly, some he just dropped whispers and hints.

He ordered a gift container of sugar scrub, pink peony scented, to be sent to Sherlock’s flat and contemplated picking him up and putting a few more bends into him; he decided to work on John, instead.

It was the end of the work day when he arrived at the building currently housing Mycroft’s office.

“Hullo, Detective Inspector, how have you been?” Jim said as he stepped into the outer office.

Lestrade scrabbled for his gun, Jim just stood there with an eyebrow quirked. “We’re on the same SIDE, Greg.  Didn’t you get the memo?”

“Uh… uh yes… right.” He blinked a lot and put the gun away. “Sorry, you…”

“Are very convincing, yes,” Jim said, pleasantly harmless looking. “I’m sorry if you were startled.  I have to report in to Mycroft.  Why don’t you go pull yourself together, you don’t want him seeing you this frazzled.” _Good God, the crush Greg had on Mycroft was visible from space._

Lestrade excused himself and hurried out.

Jim knocked on the door in Greg’s manner and walked in.

“Yes, Le‑“ Mycroft froze as he looked up. _He had not been sleeping well_ , Jim noted with amusement.

“Hello, Mycroft, love,” Jim said closing and locking the door behind him. “I’m quite sure you weren’t expecting me.”

Mycroft looked at him, and Jim could see relief, and anger, and utter confusion in his eyes.

“No. No, I wasn’t.” _I thought you’d be dead by now._

“Mmm.” Jim came over and sat down on the edge of Mycroft’s desk, idly playing with the pens in the holder. “There’s an ink stain on your desk. That’s new.”

“Broke a pen.”

“It might have worked, you know, except it wasn’t just me.  We pooled our resources. I really should thank you: I thought it would take ages longer to get Bond into bed.”

Mycroft’s shoulders tensed, and his jaw tightened, and one hand twitched toward his umbrella. “Do tell.”

“Oh, I never kiss and tell, love, not with anyone who means anything. You should remember that.”

“No one means anything to you, Jim.” Mycroft could picture the familiar darkness swirling around Jim like a cloak. 

“I thought no one meant anything to YOU.” Jim looked up at him and smiled. ”You used to be so very at home in my darkness, of course… you were darker.”   

“I thought I was over you,” Mycroft said gruffly.

“I thought so, too… but then you actually used your office to try to get me killed, Mycroft. I’m impressed; I truly thought you’d gone over to the good guys when we broke up.”

“I have, you’re a menace.” Mycroft tried to sound threatening; it failed.

“You destabilized political connections between Russia and the UK, in an attempt to ensure that not only I, but a highly valuable British agent, and your chief computer asset, didn’t escape, Mycroft, because you’re jealous. Really, I didn’t think you still cared.”

Jim leaned all the way over the desk and placed a soft, gentle kiss on Mycroft’s lips.  Mycroft clenched his hands in his lap to keep from grabbing him and dragging him into his lap, or strangling him.

“Caring is not an advantage,” Mycroft said bitterly. “You do stupid things.” He glared at Jim, “Like fail to get you killed.”

Jim just smiled. His nose wrinkled up adorably, exactly the way it used to.  He got off the desk and walked back and unlocked the door. “I always knew you’d come back to me.”

Mycroft felt warning bells buzzing and ringing around him. “We aren’t, I haven’t.  I tried to get you all KILLED. It’s not as though I sent you flowers and an apology!” Mycroft stood up behind his desk, fists clenched.

Jim stood by the door, head tilted, leaning back, the very picture of innocence. “You are no longer primarily working for Crown and Country, Mycroft, love: you put your own personal interests far ahead of the Crown.”

Mycroft felt ill; he sank into his chair.

Jim slipped out of the door, smiling, with the words, “Welcome back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Essentially? Fini.
> 
> The next chapter is something of an epilogue to this story, and the story line otherwise continues DIRECTLY in the arc /fic entitled "Pressure".  
> however  
> first i will be publishing the long awaited back story of Mycroft and Jim's prior relationship. and that one gets Trigger Warnings all over it. it is, as you may expect, very dark.


	17. Epilogue: Cameras

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bond Takes Q home

Bond took Q home.  Q was unsteady on his feet and Bond had to help him get inside. “Where’s your tea? I have it on good authority that you live on it.”

Q just collapsed on the sofa and waved in the general direction of the kitchen.  Bond found the tea easily enough: everything was neatly organized except for the apparent insanity of technological… stuff… everywhere. “Q? Why is there an eviscerated toaster on this table?”

“It was an experiment; I was looking into installing… oh, never mind.”

Bond made up some tea, and found some packaged cheese and crackers that were still good, although the rest of the refrigerator was going to have to be cleared out. He glanced into the trash and frowned. At least eight sheets of paper with giant printed letters Jim, PLEASE call me had been stuffed in the trash.

Bond came out and put down the tea and the cheese. “Afraid everything else is plotting revolution in your ‘fridge.”

“Oh.  How long has it been?”

“Two weeks, for me. About half that for you I think.”

“Seems like longer.”

“You said that.” Bond waited until he’d had the tea, and a bit of cheese, and pulled him into his lap.

“Hmm?”

“I’d rather not interrogate you again, Q.”

“That was fun, but I am awfully tired, so probably not a good idea. Why?”

“Tell me why Jim has cameras in your house.”

Q stiffened. “How the bloody hell do you know THAT? It took me DAYS to find them!”

“Thank you for confirming it.”

“Fuck,” Q sagged.

“Why?”

“You,” Q said quietly.

Bond just held him for a bit. “To watch us, you mean?”

“That’s what he said, yeah.”

“When?”

“When he talked to me at MI6.  He told me he’d bugged my office, and… he asked me how much I enjoyed being interrogated by you.” Q sighed, “He pointedly reminded me that he’d promised to arrange for my fantasies to come true, and that was a big one.”

Bond nodded slowly, pulling Q in tighter. “You had your staff rip all those cameras out.”

“I told you. I’m no traitor.  I can’t… I love Jim.  I know it’s probably ridiculous, and I know it’s… it’s what he wanted, but I love him.  That doesn’t mean he has any business in MI6.  I keep secure data in there.”

Bond breathed out a bit. “But the cameras here?”

“He… he told me to leave them alone, so he could watch… when…”

“When we finally got together.”

“Yes.”

“You found them, obviously.”

Q nodded, “Eventually. They’re really insanely good. Even the signal is hard to find. I THINK it goes to a repeater somewhere nearby, and then sends out in a packet. But I’m not sure.”

“So why not tell someone?”

Q lay back into Bond’s chest. “I don’t know.  It… it didn’t seem important, and I guess I thought seeing whatever happened was a small price to pay for… for having you.”

Bond looked thoughtfully around, “Because you don’t keep MI6 things here: it’s just personal.”

“Right,” Q nodded. “It’s just me. Not even my cats anymore.”

Bond blinked a lot. “Cats?”

“I had cats. I took them to a Nikki’s house when M sent me out of town. Before.  By the time I got back, well, her kids adored them, and I didn’t know what would happen next. So they kept them.”

“Oh.” Bond shrugged; Q felt the muscles ripple behind him and sighed, curling back into Bond’s chest.

“You’re comfortable.”

Bond snorted. “I’m a bloody killer.”

“Apparently I like them, God knows why.”

“You didn’t like me when you first showed up.”

Q laughed, “Yes I did.  I took one look at you and got insanely hot, so I fell back on intellectual snarking as a defense.”

“Oh? I hadn’t noticed.”

“YOU didn’t notice when I was flirting outright.”

“You’re terrible at it.”

“Yeah.”

“The therapists didn’t do any good at all, did they?”

“Maybe. I don’t trance out when I run into random song cues anymore. That’s… something.” Q sighed, “Although Jim put me down easy enough.”

“He had hypnotics...”

“Oh, not the plane.  When… when he called me.  He put me down right over the phone.”

Bond stiffened slightly. “Did he?”

“I was kind of hysterical.  I think he wanted me to calm down so he could understand what was wrong.”

“Oh.” Bond took a deep breath. “That’s fair. Not good, that he could, I mean.”

“Oh, not at all.  I went over the mission brief for him.  I didn’t even think twice.” Q hung his head. “I was terrified I was going to lose you.”

“Q.” Bond tilted his head back and looked down at him. “I’m a Double-O. You’ve ridden along on enough missions…”

“You’re personal. I managed to hold it together when the alerts went off, and I verified that one of the items was broken well after the blast, so I knew you’d gotten out.  I was doing ok… just… the longer there was nothing, the worse it got. Eventually M sent me on leave.”

“And you called Jim?”

“Three days, a panic attack at the bookstore, and that damn song later, yes.”

“Which song?’

“Criminal, Britney Spears.”

Bond blinked. “That was Jim’s song, right?”

“Right, as opposed to yours‑“ Q stiffened up.

Bond chuckled, a low steady rumble. “I should have thought of that. Let me guess, the psychs didn’t either?”

He relaxed, “No. they never asked.”

“What’s mine? Jim picked it?”

“No, I did.  Jim asked me what songs went through my mind when I thought of you.  I mean I was pretty well out of it, but he asked me. I told him a few, we agreed on that one.” Q looked up into blue eyes, with blond hair hanging down. “Blond Over Blue:  it suits you.”

Bond shook his head, “I don’t know that one. Of course, I don’t actually know that many songs.”

“Of course not. You probably live in a cave without electricity, judging from how you treat my equipment.”

Bond laughed, “No, but I don’t like noise, I like real people sounds. So, blond over blue, is that like blue eyes, black hair?”

“God no, I didn’t know any Irish songs until Jim.  It’s Billy Joel.”

Bond let his mind go back. “That first night I went out with you in the pub… you asked for Billy Joel.”

“Yeah.  Different album, though.”

“I’ll have to hear it sometime.”

“It’s cued up in my bedroom; I play it to help me sleep.”

Bond blinked. “Not sure that’s helping, Q.”

“Better than not sleeping.”

 _Bond knew that all too well._ “What other songs did you think of for me?” Bond asked, partly curious, partly just to keep him talking.

“Oh, tons, really. Some of them just had a nice rhythm, some had a line or two… one or two pretty risqué ones, only a couple really suited.”

“So when Jim called he put you under?”

“Yes. I was sort of babbling.  After a bit he pulled me back up but I was all… calm.  You’ve seen how it is.”

“And?”

“He asked me to find out if you were a last minute substitute.  He was concerned you’d been put in by Mycroft.”

Bond nodded, “I had run into Jim by accident that same day. M called me while I was out to lunch with him.”

Q twisted around and stared at him, “You’re kidding.”

“I know, it sounds unlikely.”

“No wonder he figured it was a set up.” Q sighed, “Well, when I confirmed it was‑ M had pulled you in as a change in plans‑ he said he would help… and I went out and got picked up.”

“That… was…” Bond tried to be politic, and was biting back a scorching dress down.

“Stupid? Reckless? Idiotic?”

“At least.”

“And then the bastard turned out to be staying at a BDSM house.”

“You mean someplace people go for that?”

“Well, I assume it’s not just for him.  The lady who answered the door about dropped me in my tracks.”

“Dominatrix?”

“Corset dress, high heels… She dropped a lead over my head as soon as I walked in.” Q put a hand up to his throat. “Collars… it’s… I suppose you’d say that’s a conditioned response.  It puts me in that head space. I may not be into girls, but she hit a lot of my other buttons.”

“And then you walked in and Jim was there…” Bond sighed, “He didn’t know before then, did he?”

“Apparently not.” Q’s hand went to his chest.

“You know, I never saw the cuts. Just the bandages.”

“He changed them while you were…  busy.”

“He also fucked you into the floor at least once.”

Q flushed and shrank. “Yes, THANK you for bringing that up, Bond.”

Bond sighed. “Do you have a decent first aid kit?”

“For me? Yes. For a Double-O? Not even.”

“Come on.” Bond got up and tugged him to his feet.

“I thought you wanted to see?” Q waved at his chest.

“I do, but not until I know my hands are clean and we have the supplies to re-bandage you.”

“Oh.”

They walked to the small work shop and Q got out his first aid kit.

“This… is it?” Bond stared at it.

“I don’t expect enemy agents to strafe my flat, Bond.  The worst I usually deal with is kitchen injuries.”

Bond frowned at it, but eventually concluded that it would do. They moved out of the work area. Bond stopped to wash his hands in the bathroom and frowned that Q was no longer there.  He found him in the bedroom.

“I don’t intend‑“

“It’s got good light, it’s clean, and I can lie down.”

Bond sighed and nodded. Q stripped off his clothes and threw them in the hamper. “I don’t even know how to wash most of them. They’re not what I usually wear.”

Bond carefully undid the bandages. Indeed, in almost the same spot as his bite mark, on the other side of his chest, was a beautifully scripted “JM”.  It was small, and fairly delicate; Bond traced it lightly with his finger.

Q gasped and bit his lip.

“He did a good job.  It’s small, looks like something you might have had ‘done’ you know?” Bond said after a moment, “You probably don’t need a bandage overnight.”

“Do that again?”

“Q…”

“Jim… Jim traced your bite mark, when I was on his sofa… he tied me down, I didn’t… actually, I wanted him to by then.” Q laced his fingers into Bond’s.

“It’s not like you can really turn him down, Q,” Bond frowned.

“I could have.  He brought me up, asked me my limits. I suppose this might be iffy on the ‘nothing I have to explain to the doctors’, but we didn’t go over it in detail.  He asked me again before he did it.  I was... I was a bit busy imagining you…”

“Me? Why the bloody hell would you be imagining me then?”

“He said, ‘Imagine Bond, growling in your ear, USING you… while I amuse myself with your front.’” Q took a deep shuddering breath. “I did… and then when we finally found you that’s… that’s what happened.”

Bond closed his eyes and silently cursed Jim in eight languages. Then he opened his eyes, “Yes, well I can’t imagine why he thought that would happen. I didn’t think so.”

Q smiled sadly, “And all I can hear in my head is ‘Jim is right, Jim is always right.’ And ‘Didn’t I promise, Q?’, because he did: he promised you would come get me; he promised I would go back to MI6, but I would be with you; he promised that later we would all be together. And he… was… right.

“And I thought I was free of him, I really did.  I thought I could just avoid seeing him, and let him have his cameras, and… and that would be all.  Right up until you vanished, and… God DAMN it.”

Bond sat down on the bed and pulled Q up into him again. “I’m sorry, Q.”

“The problem is? I’m not. Not anymore.” Q shook his head and ran a hand down Bond’s chest. “Jim was… Jim was platonic. You were sex.  Now?  As soon as I walked in to that house and had a collar put on me, I lost.  I had no idea Jim was even… He was just Jim.  There was nothing, nothing physical, at all.  That was all YOU.”

Bond knew far more than anyone should know about conditioning. He’d been through it.  He knew all about making someone’s body respond, he’d done it.  Jim hadn’t intended to create a physical link to Q, that’s what BOND was for, that fantasy… and then…

“So you walked in and he saw you were vulnerable.”

“He dropped me next to him. I didn’t care.  I just wanted to stop thinking for a while.  He talked about keeping me, I think.  Then he brought me up, and we talked safewords, because he said…“

“He said?”

“He said he actually liked me.” Q sighed, “Then we talked limits, and then he collared me, or maybe he hit me with the crop first; it’s kind of mixed up.  We talked first, though.  I had my hands on his desk and he hit me, a lot harder than I was used to.  Something sort of went… I dunno, snap sounds wrong.”  Q frowned, clutching Bond’s hand. “Somehow I was on the sofa, and restrained. It was wonderful, I love being held.”

“I got that.” Bond smiled just a bit. Q’s story was enough the same to be genuine, and enough different and confused to not be a programmed cover.  Bond remembered too well the repeat of “Martin from It, who works for Caruthers”, and this… isn’t it.

“He asked me if I wanted to safe word; I didn’t. He talked about you using me, and he hit me with the crop… I vaguely remember that it hurt…” Q reached up and traced the mark. “And then he cleaned me up, and he wrapped me up in a warm blanket, and I fell asleep in his lap.” Q made a face, “And then the bastard told me we had to get on an airplane… “

“And all of this was stuff you liked before?”

“Bond… I never had anyone cut me, but there’s a REASON I went crazy over you biting me. I spent most of my Uni days wearing turtlenecks to hide the marks. I was always a bit off on Mondays because I could feel the flog marks on my back and legs sitting in class.”

“Alright, alright. I believe you.” _And of course the records are long gone– if Q wanted to hide something, he could._

“Bond. If you hadn’t been off on a mission… you kissed me that time, before... before Jim.  Did I seem like I wasn’t interested?”

“You seemed pretty willing, yeah.” Bond grinned.

“I wanted YOU.  I still want you. I’ve lost so many people because they couldn’t deal with the fact that I’m a sub in bed, and an annoying arrogant sonofabitch who knows what I’m doing at work.  I was hoping you… I was hoping you could.”

“We’re going to have to sit down with M, and the psychs, and talk to them about how many hooks he still has.  And the cameras are going to have to go.”

“Yeah.”

“Tomorrow.”

“What?”

“I believe you, Q.  I’m willing to give it a try, if you understand that I am not safe, I’m not nice, and I’m not a hero.  I’m a very cruel, hard man, who enjoys what I do, sometimes a bit too much.”

“I knew that, yes.”

“Tell me you want this, that you STILL want this.”

“I want you to make me forget anyone else ever had their hands on me, Bond. I want to know I belong to you, and you want me. I want to be able to let go.” Q smiled faintly. “Will that do?”

“It’ll do.”

Bond pushed him down onto the bed and traced Jim’s initials with his tongue, and fit his teeth into the bite marks, and reduced Q to clutching at him and screaming his name, until Q fell asleep, curled up on Bond’s chest… Bond petting down his back…

Bond’s blue eyes looked up into the camera‑more by inferring where they had to be, than being able to see them‑ and he ran a tongue over his teeth, and smiled before he turned off the light.

*

Jim felt the bite mark in his shoulder burn, watching that. James had paid him back for that first kiss that night with all three of them.  It had been marvelous. He’d have to find a way to get him back.

They took the cameras out the next day. It didn’t matter; Jim had them back in before they even stopped watching for it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The EVENTS in this story are followed directly by the story arc titled "Pressure" however i want to publish "Walk Away" (Jim and Mycroft's back story) first.
> 
> TW: the back story on Jim is abusive, hostile, includes gas-lighting and assault... and then some, just as a heads up


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